Saturday Snapshot

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy. 

April 2015 - Fort Worth TX

While we were in Fort Worth we paid a visit to the Civil War Museum.

There was a collection of Judy Richey gowns on display. This private collection is an expansive look at original women's and children's clothing from the Victorian Era.  With over 300 Victorian dresses and hundreds of accessories, the museum exhibits rotate to include 1860 - 1900 attire.

Getting photos of the clothes within their glass displays was a challenge.

A bustle is a type of framework used to expand the fullness or support the drapery of the back of a woman's dress, occurring predominantly in the mid-to-late 19th century. Bustles were worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skirt from dragging. Heavy fabric tended to pull the back of a skirt down and flatten it. Thus, a woman's petticoated or crinolined skirt would lose its shape during everyday wear (from merely sitting down or moving about). 

Certainly glad we don't have to wear these contraptions!

I was very excited to see this hat from Gone With The Wind.

Women’s hats were decorated with wings, breasts and whole birds. According to Harper’s Bazaar, in 1875 the merle, or blackbird, was a favorite, and especially the merle bronzé, a Brazilian blackbird, which was not black, but had blue and bronze shades on its wings and back.

The entire bird was used, and was mounted on wires and springs that permitted the head and wings to be moved about in a bird-like manner. The homely gray swallow was also stuffed and used for ornament; in addition heads of spotted pigeons with their staring eyes; and long mounted pieces from the breasts of pigeons, pheasants, and peacocks were found atop a lady’s hat. One would also see cocks’ plumes of the deepest green shades mounted in thick ruches, long clustered plumes, and in bandeaux that passed around the crown and hung on each side behind. Arrangements of ostrich feathers projected outward from the hat and upward on the crown; left to curl without being tacked in the middle.
Not a fan of wearing dead birds on my head!

Loved this!

Ditto on wearing a corset!! I always remember the scene from Gone With The Wind when Scarlett is getting dressed and the maid tightening the corset.