Customer Reviews

Fashions of the Gilded Age, Volume 1: Undergarments, Bodices, Skirts, Overskirts, Polonaises, and Day Dresses 1877-1882

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This book contains patterns for the following:
corsets, hoopskirts and bustles (some)
underclothing and negligee wear (quite a few)
day and evening skirts (only about four)
day bodices (quite a few)
evening bodices (some)
overskirts (some)
polonaises (some)
day dresses (quite a few)

some = around ten
quite a few = over 20

I would recommend this book for anyone who likes victorian costuming. It not only works as a pattern book, but as a source book, having lots of pictures you can use for reference. Even if you just look through it, it really can help you understand the styles of that era.

There's just so MUCH material in this book--so many pictures and patterns and so many pages of hard-to-find information. Women's styles of the period were intricate, with separate bodices, overskirts, and skirts, or with polonaises (a bodice with the overskirt attached) and skirts. This book separates patterns for bodices, skirts, overskirts, and polonaises to mix and match however you want. It also gives patterns for whole dresses, but you can mix their components too.

There are far more patterns for EVERYTHING than I've ever seen anywhere else. There were many, many ways of cutting and draping an overskirt or a polonaise. In this book it's amazing to see fashion plates of overskirts that look similar in the plates, but the cut and drape shown by the pattern pieces is quite different. There are even 19 patterns for chemises.

This book will keep me busy for a long time!

I am very pleased with this book and I think it gives a load of information for a very reasonable price.

The book (together with vol.2) is overfilled with all kinds of garments you can imagine and for each sort of garment there are always many styles.

It is not directly a drafting book, it does not tell you how to draft your own bodice etc. by using your measurements, but the method of using the patterns and the enlarging rulers is very close to that and, as I think, it might produce a very good substitution for a custom-drafted dress with saving a lot of your time and being very simple to do. It is something between custom drafting and pre-sized patterns, because you create the garments by using your bust and back length measurement, which are the two most important measurements for making a garment suited to your proportions and it will probably need only little easy modifications like adding/substracting from waist and hip width and maybe some changes for the front length. But all possible and most frequent modifications are very well explained in the book.

It is all written in such a way that even with no or little knowledge of drafting, you'll be able to produce a probably very well fitted garments.

For a drafting professional, it's a good help when doing things like skirts, especially draped overskirts and all garments creating a shape or silhouette that is hard to figure out. Even if you won't use the patterns for enlarging and draft the things yourself, you can very well keep to the shape of the patterns as you can see, unlike in so many pattern books, NUMBERS.

I think this book has the best ratio of the price and the information given of all costume book I've come through. It's a pity that there are no such books for earlier periods:-(

The pictures and descriptions within the book are an excellent reference if you are researching and intending on recreating one of these beautiful designs. Advanced knowledge of sewing skills is a must for those who wish to recreate these (definantly not for the novice sewer). Frances Grimble, you've done it again. Please keep them coming. I will buy every book you put out.

This book is wonderful. I believe I own every book Frances Grimble has written and anxiously await more. The variety of patterns is amazing and allows the experienced sewer to create their own designs from various components, like sleeves and collars. This sure beats trying to decipher the patterns in an original 1890's issue of Harpers!

This is a great book for seamstresses with some experience(I think it would be too hard for beginners.It would be good if you have some comprehenesion on sizing(drafting patterns yourself for example)but that isn't even necessary.I think it would be easier though:)

Frances Grimble gives clear instructions for changing patterns to size and even to different body shapes(large bust, short back etc.
You do need to take some time for this, but well, you'll have an authentic pattern in your hands, how great is that?;)And there are so many in this book! I was having a very hard time finding real historical patterns in The Netherlands(so far found one french journal from 1902)and I feel like a kid in a candystore now.:)I <3 this book already.

You can make a complete outfit, from undergarments to overgarments.

If you have some sewing experience and you love this period it is really a great book!



Amazon's service is excellent too. It didn't take very long for the item to arrive(from US to the Netherlands)(with one step faster shipping, expidited?)it was even a lot faster then the estimated arrival time.

This book (series, really) is awesome! I am intermediate in my sewing abilities, and found it very easy to decipher and use. I am making a wedding dress from a mix of patterns found in these books. Very period-accurate, nice fashion plates, well written, clearly explained. You could not ask for more. I recommend that you make your first attempt or few from cheap/recycled material, until you are comfortable with how pieces of this time are made, as it is far more complicated than most of today's simplified and streamlined patterns. Be prepared to put in some hours on a good piece. If you are just want to educate yourself on fashion's of the Victorian era, this is a great series for you!

This entire series from Frances Grimble is the most astounding amount of compiled research we've ever seen! A valuable resource for costumers, re-enactors, history aficionados, or anyone wanting a comprehensive look at these fashions and the culture surrounding them.I purchased the entire set for my wife (costumer, historian...) and we were completely impressed with both the quality of the content as well as the layout and organization of the series.

Absolutely recommended...worth every penny!

This is an absolutely amazing book! I have not yet seen so thorough a resource on Victorian patterns. And this is only Volume 1. I look forward to picking up Volume 2 later. I have a few of the reproduction patterns in Dover books. Those are nice, but I did not expect so much in this book. Yes, it's over 400 pages, but it didn't sink in that it would be so big. I have yet to attempt any of the patterns, but even if they aren't perfect, there is enough information to get started and tweak any errors in the book. The instructions are more than other books, in how they tell you to put together the pieces. I love the number of undergarments. Also the variety of outfits is wonderful. Now if I could just find as thorough a source for men's clothing, life would be perfect.

Lots of pictures with fabric and coloring explanations! An excellent resource! I made a Victorian style bustle gown for my daughters school play, and this helped with silhouettes, trims, etc.