Fiona Veitch Smith travels to Weimar Berlin in 1930, using her antique Baedeker guidebook, and finds that the nearly 100-year-old book can still help her find the places she’s researching in the 2020s. In previous articles for Historia I outlined how I use vintage fashion and vintage guide books as research for my neo-Golden Age […]
The invention of masculine fashion
Novelist Carolyn Kirby describes how research for her new novel, Ravenglass, led her to wonder what lay behind the apparently radical shift in men’s fashions during the late 18th century. She discusses the invention of the ‘masculine’ style that still dominates menswear. The clothes we wear are more than fashion choices. They tell other people […]
Fashion research for historical novels
Fiona Veitch Smith immerses herself in researching her 1920s and 1930s novels, using period objects and recreating costumes – which she also wears. She tells Historia about her 10 years of historical fashion research and offers some tips for anyone who’d like to try this way of getting a feel for the era they’re writing […]
Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman
London, 1799. Dora Blake lives with her uncle in what used to be her parents’ famed shop of antiquities. When a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, Dora is intrigued by her uncle’s suspicious behaviour and enlists the help of Edward Lawrence, a young antiquarian scholar. For Edward, the ancient vase is the key to unlocking […]
An appearance of serenity: the French fashion industry in WWII
Author Catherine Hokin writes for Historia about a (perhaps conveniently) forgotten period in the history of Paris couture: the city’s occupation during the Second World War.
What Lies Beneath..?
To celebrate National Underwear Day on 5 August, Karen Bowman journeys through 300 years of unmentionables. So…5 August 2018 is National Underwear Day… a full 24 hours to contemplate how undergarments down the centuries have pushed, pulled and bullied our bodies into an altered state of reality, if not always being able to shape our […]