Circa 1900 - 1910?

[Ricko]

I've decided to clean the closet of my old polyester leisure suits and follow a"wild hair", no, a dream that I've had for some time! As one who still shaves with a Dubl Duck Wonderedge straight razor (the best), collects gold railroad watches, and does large format b/w photography I believe qualifies me as a romantic or eccentric nut!
I've studied some old home town photographs of the turn of the last century and find that the local lumber baron's with their full beard, waistcoat with gold chain and pocket watch, high collared shirt and frock coat(?) were a true portrait of a strong, smart and dapper gentleman! Even the top hat was becoming of the day, which probably would be a little much today.
I'd love to be able to recapture this look and attend a Saturday night performance of our local symphony with my wife as was the case in times gone by.
My question for you would be where does one go to find the proper clothing style information for that period should one want to have custom made vests (waistcoats) and shirts with proper collars, trousers etc. made?
Although one would probably look at this as making something of costume quality, I prefer to think of it as more of a today's quality in workmanship only of an earlier style.
If you can help me out with this question I'd appreciate it. Then again, if you think I should just climb aboard the spaceship I flew in on, that's okay too!

 

[JDCrockett]

Try these for starters

Welcome to The Lounge! Sounds like a great idea. People in the cowboy action shooting hobby regularly attend the equivalent of Victorian Dress Balls after
major competitions and consequently there are quite a few vendors that supply
such clothing. Victorian fashions (at least some items) and accessories will fit
into your years of interest. Check these 2 vendors:

http://www.riverjunction.com/catalog/catindex.html

http://www.wwmerc.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=home

both have good reputations for quality and service, although I've heard people
recommend calling River Junction to check stock and avoid backorder delays.
Check out formal wear and men's accessories sections for watches, stand-up
celluloid collars and the like. Of course ebay can be a good source for real vintage and that may be your only option for top hats and spats.
More sources for cowboy action clothing can also be found at the links
page of the SASS web site :

http://www.sassnet.com/Links-Main-001A.php

Hope these are some help, Good Luck!

 

[shindeco]

Maybe check out the Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM)

www.alhfam.org/

It's an organization of people who work professionally in the historical reproduction business. These people are FANATICS about accuracy (they have to be) and know so much!

 

[Lionheart]

My question for you would be where does one go to find the proper clothing style information for that period should one want to have custom made vests (waistcoats) and shirts with proper collars, trousers etc. made?

Here's a few links that might help:

http://www.gentlemansemporium.com/index.php

http://www.cornerclothiers.com/

I also have shopped at River Junction Trading in the past, and it took almost a year for a shirt to arrive. They apologized, but, "a year"?

 

[Ricko]

Thanks to everyone for your input. I was amused with the one link containing the costume pocket watches for 89.95! I still believe that my 1878 Waltham 21 jewels, gold filled case pocket watch with gold chain is worthy of a custom waistcoat. To get away from the direction of the "Wild West" look and that of a reenactors costume, let me rephrase my idea. I'm thinking more along the lines of a Chicago gentleman, 1900, businessman's attire, a banker by profession.

For example, if one were to get MTM shirts made, what collar style (high and pointed or winged) and cuff style would one be looking for that closely represents that era? Proper names and / or descriptions will also help in my search when talking with a MTM tailor.
Celluloid collars wouldn't have to be used if a shirt can be made with a close looking representative on the shirt. Cuffs?

Ties were of what style?

Vests were of what style? Swallowtail front or straight cut across the front?
Lapels or not? Style of front cut, more open or close? Number of front pockets?

Trousers, were they of the "fishtail" style with braces? Again, if trousers back then had only button fronts, I'd still use a zipper! It's the overall look that's important, not that every detail has to be exact or authentic.

Coat styles and overcoat styles? Waisted?

So I guess I'm looking for some help in finding a good source of information / pictorial references for complete men's fashion of that 1900 - 1910 period. Not wanting to end up with shirts that represent a style of 1870 with a collar of 1900, a vest that's from the 20's and trousers from the 30's.

As for material, it would be of today's modern worsted wools and 2-ply cottons using a modern day tailor and technique to achieve the results of an era gone by.
A look, that becomes a person. Where folks will say "now there goes a very sharp dressed man in great long forgotten vintage style". Not, "there goes a costume with a clown in it"! I hope the above adds some clarity to my intentions.

As I mentioned in my first post, I've seen old town pictures of gentleman standing on street corners where maybe the shot was looking down the street showing street cars etc. Or walking (blurred) shots that give a glimpse of the attire, but nothing close-up. Where one would have a good look at say, a collar style, or if there were lapels on the vest.
There always are the old photographs one finds in any antique shop that could be used as a reference. The only problem here is the dating of such photos. Also most of the folks in these photos were of the working class who were not fashion conscience for the most part and just wanted a one time family group picture.

To bad there isn't anything like a Smithsonian website offering "fashion styles through the decades" or something like that. It'd be a great help indeed!

 

[Lionheart]

To bad there isn't anything like a Smithsonian website offering "fashion styles through the decades" or something like that. It'd be a great help indeed!

I can offer this:

http://www.victoriana.com/Mens-Clothing/

 

[Evan Everhart]

Thanks to everyone for your input. I was amused with the one link containing the costume pocket watches for 89.95! I still believe that my 1878 Waltham 21 jewels, gold filled case pocket watch with gold chain is worthy of a custom waistcoat. To get away from the direction of the "Wild West" look and that of a reenactors costume, let me rephrase my idea. I'm thinking more along the lines of a Chicago gentleman, 1900, businessman's attire, a banker by profession.

For example, if one were to get MTM shirts made, what collar style (high and pointed or winged) and cuff style would one be looking for that closely represents that era? Proper names and / or descriptions will also help in my search when talking with a MTM tailor.
Celluloid collars wouldn't have to be used if a shirt can be made with a close looking representative on the shirt. Cuffs?

Ties were of what style?

Vests were of what style? Swallowtail front or straight cut across the front?
Lapels or not? Style of front cut, more open or close? Number of front pockets?

Trousers, were they of the "fishtail" style with braces? Again, if trousers back then had only button fronts, I'd still use a zipper! It's the overall look that's important, not that every detail has to be exact or authentic.

Coat styles and overcoat styles? Waisted?

So I guess I'm looking for some help in finding a good source of information / pictorial references for complete men's fashion of that 1900 - 1910 period. Not wanting to end up with shirts that represent a style of 1870 with a collar of 1900, a vest that's from the 20's and trousers from the 30's.

As for material, it would be of today's modern worsted wools and 2-ply cottons using a modern day tailor and technique to achieve the results of an era gone by.
A look, that becomes a person. Where folks will say "now there goes a very sharp dressed man in great long forgotten vintage style". Not, "there goes a costume with a clown in it"! I hope the above adds some clarity to my intentions.

As I mentioned in my first post, I've seen old town pictures of gentleman standing on street corners where maybe the shot was looking down the street showing street cars etc. Or walking (blurred) shots that give a glimpse of the attire, but nothing close-up. Where one would have a good look at say, a collar style, or if there were lapels on the vest.
There always are the old photographs one finds in any antique shop that could be used as a reference. The only problem here is the dating of such photos. Also most of the folks in these photos were of the working class who were not fashion conscience for the most part and just wanted a one time family group picture.

To bad there isn't anything like a Smithsonian website offering "fashion styles through the decades" or something like that. It'd be a great help indeed!

A general suggestion would be that you purchase Peacock's Gentleman's Fashion. It is a comprehensive book with fully coloured and illustrated plates from the 1770s or 80s up through the early 1990s.

That aside, I think that I may be able to be of some small help to you though this question is perhaps rather old and you may no longer care....

1900s, aye? Alright, here we go:

Collar style; Full stand up imperial collars, winged collars, various types of detachable club collars (as long as they are tall), all of these are available from ushist.com and amazon dry goods among others). Spread collars should really be avoided at this early juncture as while they were at times fashionable, they were considered rather bohemian for the most and they probably would not have been worn with formal wear though perhaps with a simple leisure suit (the only kind of suits which existed back then). The collar must be detachable as that is the only way to achieve the look you are going for.

The cuffs should be single cuffs (to be worn with cuff-links) like the ones on a shirt meant to be worn with white tie. They inner edges of the cuff should meet and be pinned against each other by the cuff-links, they should not over-lap and french cuffs (double cuffs) should not be worn.

Ties were of all sorts of styles, narrow bow-ties, narrow-ish neckties which were short (usually to no lower than the bottom of the rib-cage), and cravats which are tied in a basic square knot and crossed over and pinned horizontally. Cravats are worn outside of the collar and tucked under the vest front.

Waist-coats could be single or double vested and if you are wearing a cut-away frock coat, you could even have a vest made up with the buttons in a V arrangement (the two points above the one). Lapels could be either peaked, notched or shawl and could even have silk ribbon edging along them and along the edge of the front by the button holes. If the waist-coat is single breasted, it must have at least six buttons and it should have selvage buttons (buttons covered in the fabric which the garment is made of or in a colour which matches the silk trim if there is silk trim on the lapels). If the waist-coat is double breasted, it usually has between six and ten buttons. The vest should be very high buttoning (think around just below the dip in your collar bone). There could be two (hip), three (two hip and one usually left breast), or four (two hip and two breast) pockets on a waist-coat. The waist-coat could be made up in white or off-white, ivory, buff (for the cut-away frock-coat), matching black, or powder, almond, or dove gray.

Trousers were usually made in a banker's stripe, like the kind seen on trousers worn with a cut-away frock-coat for weddings. The trousers were and should be fish-tail. They are worn very high to at or just above the navel and held up with suspenders. They generally would not have had cuffs as these were reserved for leisure suits, not formal wear.

The coat should be either a full-skirted frock coat (with a waist suppression seam at or near the navel), full skirts, no exterior pockets, usually with peaked lapels which are usually silk faced, the coat is usually made up with selvage buttons in silk and is always black unless made up in a dove or almond gray as a sporting suit for Summer wear with matching trousers and waist-coat, or the coat is a cut-away or swallow-tailed frock coat which can be made up as a V formation button type usually with around seven buttons; also selvage or, in a single breasted type with between three and four buttons up the front. The cut-away coat should also have a waist suppression seam at or near the navel but the coat fronts should not meet at the seam but rather angle upward following the line of the tails to a little above that seam to give a peek at the waist-coat beneath. The lapels may be peaked or notched, the buttons are usually selvage. On both types of coat, the tails should be split nearly to the waist-seam and have two buttons at the seam above the tails in the back. The coat should be made up in medium to heavy broad-cloth or medium to heavy worsted.

An overcoat would be the chesterfield overcoat. They shouldn't be hard to research. Cheers!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

.



Ricko, the best education you can give yourself is to open this link and click on
every single illustration: http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/100pages/1900menswear1.htm


Also, look here: http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/100pages/1900menswear1.htm


It's all here!


.

 

[Lokar]

Another overcoat (if you're lucky) would be an over frock or top frock - essentially a frock coat, slightly larger to support having a frock coat underneath, usually with a contrasting (velvet?) collar (but not lapels).

The Granada production of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett has a very accurate representation of 1880-1890 dress, which is much closer to the 1900s than the 1920s or 1930s.

Here are some photos of my vintage frock coat, which doesn't get worn as much as it deserves. The last button (above the two buttons on the right) has since been re-sewn on.




Button detail:


Arm lining detail:



Tail pocket: (There's one in each tail).


Interior left breast pocket: (Rather than being an actual breast pocket, it's snug with where the lapel ends on the inside - a million times more convenient than a conventional breast pocket).



Thrift stores can be an excellent resource if you're lucky. I got this frock coat for about $20 converted, and a silk top hat for $5.

 

[Lauren]

.



Ricko, the best education you can give yourself is to open this link and click on every single illustration: http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/100pages/1900menswear1.htm


Also, look here: http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/100pages/1900menswear1.htm


It's all here!


.

Ditto this!! Costumes.org has some amazing information on their site.

 

[mike]

This thread is from almost 4 years ago. I'd love to know how Ricko's search turned out!

 

[Orgetorix]

Sadly, Ricko hasn't posted in two and a half years.

 

[Dr Doran]

Well, this is useful to me too -- often I think about "going earlier."

 

[Schofields]

just do an image search on google or something for 1900 and/or the years up until 1910.

remember - the photography of the era hid alot and most people did not look perfect, flawlessly clean shaven and stiff-starched pressed in real life.

 

[Evan Everhart]

Sadly, Ricko hasn't posted in two and a half years.

Even if he hasn't visited or posted in years, this is still an interesting and entertaining exercise for the rest of us who are currently on here and it presents yet another opportunity to discuss clothing which is why we're here! This is just FUN and Stimulating discussion! Come on old boy, enjoy the discussion!

 

[Evan Everhart]

Well, this is useful to me too -- often I think about "going earlier."

DO IT! I used to dress exclusively in clothing from the late 1920 through the early 1940s (my grand-father's togs, he was only about 5' or 5'2" at tallest so I could when I was younger) and clothes made for me or my father by my great-grandmother who was a seamstress with her brother's firm Wolfe (who made clothes for Bullocks). I first moved into the 20s more exclusively and then to around 1890 to 1900 and have stayed hovering about there (I made a very brief foray into the 1860s but found it not quite to my taste). It's harder to find clothes from earlier than the mid-thirties, but they are easy enough to produce or alter if you have the will and a little bit of time (or access to a good tailor) I've had my man, Mr. Daswani make up period garments for me on several occasions and have never been dissatisfied, quite the contrary.

Anyhow, rant rant! Cheers!