Dressing up a 1830s amazone

Well, so today we are looking at the romantic riding habit and let's have a short transformation from a matronly frilly lizard into an Amazon. We are starting, as usual, in a very fetching attire. I do look like a big baby, do forgive me. With linen chemise and linen pantalettes with a nice lace and a very nice embroidered stockings and wool. It's important it's embroidered because I might give someone a glimpse of my ankle. So you never know. So that's the staple undergarment of the period. Chemise would be either outside of the pantalettes or inside but because I'm riding, it would be much easier for me to fit my legs around the pommels if the chemise is tucked safely inside. Now, our next layer is a corset. Well, stays. This one you have already seen in the dressing up to 1830s ladies, but I've since upgraded it a little bit. So now it's sports fan lacing, just like the original one did. There you go. It's a bit complicated mess here, but it should lace easily and nicely. That's the theory. Now the fan lacing was introduced in the early 19th century to facilitate, oh, hello little Merlin, to facilitate getting dressed easily. Obviously when you have lots of legs like that and you don't have the split busk yet, it's difficult to put it on without help. So with fan lacing, it should be relatively easy. Well, we'll see if I put it over my head somehow. And in the meantime, we have a little cameo of Merlin. Say hello Merlin. Nose says hello. Good boy. Right, I'm going to take off my little morning cap. The caps were brilliant. I mean, they're just horrible little things, but I love them. They kept the hair dry and they kept your hair in the way it should sort of be for later. Now my hair is just arranged very, very simply for the period, which is a braid at the top of my head and some loose curls in front of the face. These curls are not my own hair. My hair doesn't take a curl at all. Well, it does for about five seconds. So these are just extensions nicely pinned in. And again, that's a completely period solution. You wouldn't be wearing artificial curls. It's just easier. And that's right. Let's see. Theoretically, I should put my stays on first and then do my hair, but it won't make it easy. Let's see if I can actually get into this without destroying my elaborate coiffure. Right, in we go. Oh my God. I think the hair is in. That's important. And you know what? I think I'm in. Hair, a little bit of shaving. There you go. Ta-da. So that's a cotton corded corset. It's typical of late Regency and Romantic period. A little bit of tuck. Still has long busk. And that's the beauty of the monolacy. If you have stays and you would like to change yours into fan lacing type, which is brilliant. As you can see, it just takes no time at all. Fantastic. Darn it. Emerick and Duchess have a very nice video showing exactly how to do it. And it's also on her blog. So click on the link and have a look. Yeah, that's about it. Should go a little bit tighter, really. So let's go a little bit tighter. Right. Fan laced stays. Cool, really. Fix of the woman. Right. Next, under the habit, there's a couple of things you can wear. You can wear longer woolen pantalettes or Turkish trousers. That would be especially welcome if it's winter and it's cold and you do a lot of riding or doing traveling. For recreational riding, you just put a couple of petticoats. And sometimes you see, the habit's still being quite sort of fluffed up with the corded petticoats, but having tried it on, and side saddle, it's really sort of, you can't do it and you can ride at a sedated pace, but galloping around might be a little bit tricky and you might trap these around the pommels. I prefer a bit more sensitivity around the pommels. So let's just put plain petticoats. Funnily enough, you can see quite often, this is going to drive me crazy today. You see quite often, bit of white petticoats or drawers peeking out from under the habits, mostly because the habits are being carried in one hand when not on the saddle. And grab another petticoat, a nicer one this time. Buttons. Right, and before we put a skirt, let's put a blouse on. Now this is a antique blouse, an original one from that period. Sporting a really lovely colour and gathered ruched shoulders. Blouses were very popular for riding, and this one actually harks back to the habit shirts of earlier era, when you have additional security of that strap so that the shirt does not ride up too much when you are in the saddle. There were shirts you could use just with a skirt for riding, and they would usually come with sleeve support and very, very puffy sleeves. But this one, because I'm wearing a habit on top of that, excuse me, there's no need. But you could definitely wear just a shirt, a very nice shirt, a nice cravat and a skirt habit, which was a very nice and cheap solution for ladies who just didn't own expensive clothing. Mind you, if you had a side saddle and a horse, you probably could afford a habit. But still in the summer, it would be quite nice. So this just keeps your shirt tucked in nicely. Let's put a variety of cravats or ties or bows were worn as well in a very masculine fashion at the time. And just like masculine accessories, they could be of different colours, different textures, could be silk, could be cotton, could be linen, could be patterned, could be plain, a lot of variety and a lot of big charms to actually show off. So let us put this one on. Let me see what we're doing here. The cravat or stocks originally have, had another function, allegedly, which is to make sure that your neck was supported. That's how the modern stocks actually work as well. and also you can use it as a tourniquet in case something happens. I'm not very good at it, am I? Let's do it again. Just a simple bow, please. Right, next up is the skirt, which I put somewhere here. It's a full length wool skirt, perfect for riding, obviously. Quite wide, using cartridge pleats as the waistband. So let's put it on. A lot of people have been asking me, why do I put skirts on, you know, from the top up like that? The answer is, if you have lots of petticoats, or obviously later skirt supports and crinolines and bustles, it's really difficult to do it the other way around. There you go, skirt. And a skirt would often have an opening for a pocket, but also so that you can pull the fabric through to make it easier to walk. Usually you would just hold your skirt here. Now, shoes. Again, a variety of options possible, depending what kind of riding you're doing. For a, a specific shoes could be worn for specific, for, again, hard riding. I would probably wear these from American Duchess, or some hussars. But often you can see ladies just riding in these, which is a bit weird. But then again, if you are flashing your ankles, either walking around or sitting in a saddle, you can actually have a quite nice view of the embroidered stockings. Some vanity, I suppose. Jacket. My wool jacket lined with cotton, glazed cotton. The sleeves are very fashionably gathered with cartridge pleats. And I should have my sleeve supports somewhere, but, let us see if I can put it without, if they still work. If not, I have some photos of sleeve supports in them. Not too bad. Right. That's going to be troublesome without the mirror, but let's do it. The buttons here are just a decoration. I'm using hooks and eyes to close it. Or rather hooks and bars. I can't see my boobs are in the way. Just one more. Come on. Ta-da. Yeah, they would look better with sleeve supports, but I might change. Let's see. A little peplum. Lots of wool, but it looks very nice on the horse. And let us put our hat on. This is one of the solutions for the period. A hat with a little veil made by Farthingale Historical Hats. And funnily enough, it doesn't actually require any pins or no pins at all because of my hair that has disintegrated somehow, but that's what's keeping my hat in position. My hair. There we go. Obviously, I need my gloves and I'm ready to get on the horse. Before I do, however, I will talk a little bit more about the saddles in the next video, but the saddles at that era already had the leaping head, the facilitating pommel. If you want to know a bit more about saddles, this book is absolutely brilliant. And you can see that's a 30 saddle. My saddle's a little bit later without that third hook that was already disappearing by that time, slowly. But it's quite secure and a leaping hat would be additional pommel like this. So yeah, very good book. Let me see if we can get any photos of similar attire. Still see nice two-horn saddle. And that's basically what I really have just without the extra hook. You already have three horns, three pommels. So with this one, you were basically much more secure. And yeah, there you go. Showing security. And let's see, just a nice chemise and a skirt and a full gallop. So yeah, very highly recommend it. Have checked it out. Loads and loads of information. Absolutely fantastic. Right. Let's get on a horse, shall we? COVID safes, well, not really. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. If you would like to support me, I've got the Buy Me Coffee account. That will help me create a bit more videos more often than now. Obviously with COVID, it's rather tricky at the moment. Most of our filming venues have canceled. But oh well, we'll muddle through somehow. So thank you for watching and thank you for supporting me. And till next time.