My sister and I attended this awesome class at Costume College 2007 that demonstrated hair and makeup from the 18th century.
We especially fell in love with the romantic, tossled curls of the late 1700's, also known as the "hedgehog".
We loved it so much, we decided to make 18th century dresses, just so we could wear hedgehogs.
The look that most inspired me was Adelaide Ducreux's Self-Portrait with a Harp ca 1790.
Here's a Bibliography of the resources that were most useful to me.
Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton. Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven and London: Yale Univerity Press
C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington. The History of Underclothes. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
La Couturière Parisienne. Retrieved November 24, 2007, from http://www.marquise.de/en/1700/index.shtml
<more to come>
Here's my approach for creating historical costumes.
"I want the Historic look without the Historic effort."
I was never in the SCA. If I find the perfect "silky" fabric at Jo-Ann's, I'm not going to care if it contains polyester...as long as it looks like silk taffeta. I'm not going to take up weaving so I can have the perfect historically accurate fabric.
And no hand stitching for me. If God had wanted me to hand sew, then he would never have invented the sewing machine. I will not, however, be pulling out the Serger. I will be sewing French seams instead.
Next step was to pick up supplies.
