Blog tip: Check out two photographic blog posts at Spitalsfield Life. Together they offer countless visual details and suggest scores of stories. Women of the Old East End publishes carte-de-visites of women from the 1860’s to 1940. I’ve chosen this girl with her Read More
Picturing a World
Top hats at the garden party
February 9, 2018
I spent happy hours visualizing Cornelia Renick’s garden party, with very clear ideas of what Jeanette, Effie, and Emily were wearing. But although I dressed the men in black, I forgot their top hats (except Robbie’s)! Now, thanks to this image, when I reread my own chapter, I’ll have to Read More
Florist’s interior
November 6, 2017
It was partly paintings of outdoor markets and street-corner flower-sellers that inspired me to have Jeanette buy flowers from time to time in Where the Light Falls, but I sent Edward into an upscale Parisian florist’s shop. Although I knew they existed, I had never found a painting of one until Read More
Telling, little details
October 30, 2017
When Jeanette goes into her first bakery in France, she notices the white cards with prices written in a Continental hand. Those price cards and their style of numbering had stuck in my mind ever since my student days in France, so it’s not surprising that I smiled this morning when I saw Read More
Pantsuit
September 8, 2017
Website tip: An article by fashion researcher Laura J Ping, Clothes as Historical Sources: What Bloomers Reveal about the Women Who Wore Them explores the implications of an unusual “reform dress” outfit that is not really an example of bloomers at all. It reminds us that history at close grain modifies generalizations. Personally, I now feel that if a character of mine wants to make an innovation in dress, I may just let her!
Thanks again to the Two Nerdy History Girls Breakfast Links. Read More
Thanks again to the Two Nerdy History Girls Breakfast Links. Read More
Divine hairstyles
May 3, 2017
Historical novelists love to find detailed images of daily life. Dancing naked around a tree might not count as typical, but I love the way you get back, front, and side views of related hairstyles here. Although I confess I have not worked out the text, the three ladies must be the three Graces—Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne—who were attendants of the God Apollo. (For the full illustration, in which Apollo is the dominant figure, click on the image.) Read More
Children in the Luxembourg Garden
July 30, 2016
A post on Children in the Summer Park at the blog, It’s About Time, alerted me to a painting I’ve been searching for without being able to remember the artist’s name—Albert Edelfelt. Itwas this painting that first gave me the idea Read More
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Absence of evidence
April 11, 2016
Absence of evidence is famously not evidence of absence. Just because next to no medieval underwear for women has physically survived and few documents refer to it clearly doesn’t mean that medieval women didn’t wear any.
The fantasy I’m working on is set in a world that, by and Read More
The fantasy I’m working on is set in a world that, by and Read More
Torn party dress
December 1, 2015
As we enter the season of parties, parties, parties, we can either rejoice or regret that the era of the lady’s maid in the cloak closet is long past. In 1922, Emily Post could still write, “Fifteen minutes before the dinner hour, Mrs. Worldly is already standing in her drawing-room.… She knows without Read More
Hat for Jeanette?
January 17, 2015
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Blog tip: Click here for one of several recent posts on hats at It’s About Time. Liljelund’s young woman (and her bangs) caught my eye because she reminds me of Jeanette, who loves clothes but needs to develop a fashion sense. Read More