Cassidy PercocoSep 12, 2025
At the historical fashion forum in Historic Deerfield today and tomorrow! Not doing the full liveblogging thing, but I will be popping in to share stuff from time to time.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 12, 2025
You can virtually register at any time to get zoom access to the talks, btw: www.historic-deerfield.org/events/fall-... #DressHistory

Fall Forum - Fashioning the Bo...
Fall Forum - Fashioning the Body: Dress in New England 1600–1900 - Historic Deerfield

Fashion has garnered great interest in recent decades and research into the history of clothing has yielded new insights into culturally embedded ideas around self-styling and the body. Yet, few studies have explored New England’s relationship with styling the body and fashionable dress. This forum will convene a group of experts in the field to explore the rich history of dressing the body and self-presentation in this region.

Historic Deerfield
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
First up: Embodying the Domestic: Embroidered Gowns and Sartorial Culture in Colonial Massachusetts and Connecticut by Livy Scott, PhD candidate at MIT.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
In 1976, a scholar declared that it must be English because of the fineness of the embroidery, but the Wadsworth gown is said to be made by its original wearer and there is considerable evidence that it is homemade work.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
The Robbins Family of East Lexington: Fashioning Themselves and the New Nation, by Jennifer Swope, curator of textiles at the MFA Boston (@mfaboston.bsky.social)
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Extant clothing worn by Abigail Winship Robbins! 🗃️🪡
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
And more!
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Abigail's fashionable hat.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Yet more of her clothes! This is incredible. I am wildly jealous.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
This is like Mary Poppins's carpetbag.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
And her husband Stephen's clothes.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
They have a bunch of Robbins family clothing, go to the MFA's website and search the surname, but here's Caira's corset. (Named for the Ça Ira, pronounced Cay-Ira.)
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Post coffee break, we have Emily Whitted of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with Patching Fashionable Forms: Early American Textile Repair in New England. 🗃️🪡
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Interesting - she suggests we think about the element of risk in imperfect/blatant mending rather than just the aspect of thrift, which is a Whole Thing when it comes to New England history.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Last before lunch, Chloe Chapin of Harvard with "Devotees to Fashion": Masculine Fashionability in New England, 1790 to 1820.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Suggestion that Trumbull's famous painting of the signing of the Declaration retroactively projects the plainer contemporary aesthetic back (while retaining overall 1770s construction) - interesting!
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
And back from lunch with Lynne Bassett, The Latest Paris and New York Fashions: Ferry & Dickinson, Northampton Dressmakers.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Mrs. Ferry:
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One of their dresses!
Sep 13, 2025 at 6:15pmWeb
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Kristan M. Hansen at the Fleming Museum of Art, speaking on Just Puritan Enough: James Wells Champney's Squire's Daughter, Colonial Revival Dress, and Mayflowers.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Oh, very cool, I would never have realized that she's messing around with May flowers.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Dr. Laura Johnson (NMAH), on The Copp Family's New England Clothing, 1750-1840, and Colonial Revival Collecting.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
An early display of the collection 😬😬😬
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Okay, penultimate paper: How to Leave Off Corsets and Not Fall to Pieces? Inventive Boston Women and Dress Reform Waists in the 1870s, by Kristina Haugland, formerly of the PMA.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
Intriguing pattern for one of Olivia Flynt's bust supporters.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
An extant Equipoise waist!
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
And the final paper: Haute Couture and Fashionable Taste in Hartford, 1850-1900, by Ned Lazaro of the Wadsworth Atheneum.
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
This is considered to be a walking costume in peasant style:
Show threadCassidy PercocoSep 13, 2025
He admitted that Pingat is better than Worth. I like him. Anyway, tagging in the #DressHistory feed again now that I'm at the end of the thread!