Hello, fellow campaigners of the writing world! My name is A. F. Kopp and I love historical fiction. I am a huge fan of history– fashion, culture, or lifestyle–and I always have fun looking things up on the world wide web or through books. But one thing that I’ve found to be hard is to find working class fashion from the 1880s. (Long title to this post is: “My Difficult Journey of Finding Historical Dress for the Working Class”).
Youtube and the internet has so many different resources for the 1860s, 70s, and even 90s of the century, but for some reason, it’s hard to find anything about the 1880s. And if you do, they focus on the upper and middle classes since they sport the authentic bustle fashion of the decade. But, since my book is set for the lower class (farmers, factory workers, and more), I need to find out all that I can about the working class’s fashion choices.
Luckily, I found this book, Making Working Women’s Costume: Patterns for Clothes From the Mid-15th to Mid-20th Centuries. I just got it in the mail yesterday evening and am super excited to read through it in depth. Though it focuses more on England’s fashion, I know this will still be helpful for me, since it has the patterns and history behind them. Though I’m still learning to read the patterns, I hope one day I can be able to make these patterns myself–or at least be a part of making a historical costume.
I know that this is a shorter post, but I am block-writing posts this week so I can be ahead of schedule, and this needs to be up first!
Thanks so much for reading today’s blog post. This time around, the question I have for you all is this: what is your favorite era to research, write, or read about and why?
Salutations, fellow adventurers!
A. F. Kopp
A. F. Kopp Author 