The Dreamstress: My posts on 18th century clothing in shades of purple, and the direction of stripes on 18th century sleeves, have been so popular that I thought you might enjoy a whole series on patterns and colours. You can learn so much by just looking at a bunch of images of clothes from any given era with one unifying detail.
For my first theme I picked pink.
8 comments:
Ah yes. An article entirely on the color pink. So despite not being a designer I do have a fascination with color. I took a color class last year and I did an entire semester long project on color in middle school. The author said that this was her first theme, so I am excited to see the rest of the colors and she mentioned potentially patterns. Pink isn’t my favorite color, maybe because I was a kid that abhorred anything that made me seem girly, but I am interested to see how now looking through these colors captured through paintings which decades I like the best. I love a nice ballet pink, akin to those lighter shades. Its interesting to me how I tend to like the warmer pinks when they are lighter but the cooler pinks when they are darker. I think my favorite article of clothing was the painting of the governor of New York from 1736. There is something about seeing that silhouette in that color that is so fun.
Something that I felt like this article was lacking was a more scientific approach to some of the swatches of fabric, to prove that it had not faded, or at the very least hypothesizing about whether or not the swatches of fabric that remain intact were faded over time, or if they retained their original hue. I was also a little disappointed to find that the author doesn't really show a lot of hot pink, even though they promise it in the article’s first few paragraphs. I've been slowly working through a really interesting book on the history of color in how dyes were made and the different connotations of colors in different places of the Earth. I also felt like this is something that has been missing from this particular article's conversation. This pink may have meant certain things to the people who are wearing them. If so, what did it mean? Did it mean something different in this one place or this one region than it did in another? The book that I have been reading has been discussing a lot about the different dyes, and the cultural significance behind different dyeing materials and processes, and I was really hoping that that would be something brought into this conversation more, because I think it's really interesting to look at that, especially when you add in through the lens of whether or not these materials will have faded, because if they have faded, they also lose their meaning because they aren't the specific you that they were intended to be when they were being used.
It’s fascinating to see how color symbolism can change so quickly! We talk about semiotics and the power of association a lot in basic design, but our conversations usually center around cultural associations—character tropes, iconography, pop culture, media, etc.—but there are so many abstract associations that can be drawn from color (and even fabric type). Today, pink is associated with femininity and softness. However, as the article explains, pink in early eighteenth century Europe took on an entirely different meaning. Although pink dye (which could be extracted from madder root, a relatively common European plant) was not as difficult to come by as others, like purple (which was extremely difficult to dye evenly and could only be obtained by sea-snail mucus), it was still a favorite of royals and aristocrats, especially around the 1730s-1740s. Coral pink was especially popular amongst powerful men, and represented wealth, dominance, and masculinity. This article is great proof of why research and dramaturgy are so important. If we analyze the paintings and salvaged garments with a modern perspective, we lose out on so much of the cultural context we need in order to understand the significance of these fashion choices.
It is so cool to see this many colors from the 18th century, well not many, just many of one. The pinks in the article are such nice shades of pink, I particularly enjoyed the first pink presented that was really hard to tell if it was pink or a light purple, which was a fun exercise for the mind and eye. Seeing both men and women wear pink shouldn’t surprise me as much as it did, I suppose I was expecting the shades of pink I more commonly see on men now a days, typically more caucasian skin color than any sort of hot or saturated pink. It was nice to see people have full colored pink outfits, they all looked so decadent and the pearly lace was a particularly nice combination I saw.
This is Eloise
I'm glad that this article has confirmed pinks looked different in the 1800s. I have a weird brain thing that makes me associate that colors looked different at different times and I'm happy to see I am somewhat a little bit right!! But I am a little bit incorrect because even hot pink was depicted in 1800s art, paintings and fashion included. Regardless, color trends are so fun. The way our 2017 pastel teal had the same social impact as 1780’s pale lilac is really funny and fascinating to me. Historical research and work like this is so cool to me. I hope finding color trends from the 1800s offers some lucky people a job other than a hobby to blog about because this takes some serious research and genuine intelligence. Something in this article that really caught my eye was those funky pink pointy embroidered shoes. Absolutely stunning how intricately embroidered they were and the different tones of pinks they had. So cool to know that even back then we were able to dye fabric to colors all across the color spectrum.
Wait, this authors work is so exciting! I need to read their other posts about purple and directional stripes ASAP. Its so cool to see so many historical examples of the various shades of pink that existed then. I had the importance of primary research for historical fashion DRILLED into me in high school because there are so many misconceptions regarding historical fashion floating around. Any time I stumble across a large collection of fashion-depicting paintings or especially actual clothing items / fabric samples I get really excited. Real fashion samples are especially treasured because you get insight into construction methods, and small details like stitching and weaving grain that you wouldn't otherwise see in paintings (unless your painter had an INCREDIBLE eye for detail). Of course, there is something to be said for survivorship bias and the actual historical relevancy of a piece not used often enough to survive to today. But regardless, it is very valuable to even be able to see pieces from so long ago.
I love learning about the history of colors, especially in relation to fabric and garments. I wonder how much our views of these colors are skewed by how the artifacts and paintings have been weathered over time. To me, one of the most interesting things about fabric colors is how the cost of materials affects what social class wears what color. This is especially interesting as new and cheaper ways to dye fabrics the same color were invented, and certain colors became available to the working classes. The past was a lot let monochrome than many depictions would have people believe. I have always wanted to try dying fabric in a historically accurate way, boiling down plants or crushing pigments. This would be especially striking with some of the more modern garments, lending a modern lens on the historic dying processes and would provide me with a fun experiment of what fabrics take to newer dying techniques versus what fabrics take best to the older techniques.
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