A Victorian Fashion Show

In the early years of the nineteenth century, women’s fashion was influenced by the classical simplicity of Greece, a style embraced by Napoleon’s wife Josephine. However, by the end of the 1820’s women shifted back to romanticism. Skirts were belled out by undergarments, shortened sleeves increased in bulk, and hair was curled into ringlets. The simple, classical gown was replaced with myriad bows, ribbons, tucks, and decorative buttons. Clothes were now made of stiff pastel colored fabric, not soft muslin.

In the mid 1830’s the crinoline was introduced to make ladies’ skirts stand out. It was made of horsehair and linen and shaped and wired to make the skirts as big as possible. Women also wore small, tipped-forward hats. Unfortunately, this style was constrictive and artificial.

During this time period each time of day and each occupation necessitated a complete change of clothes. The first separate blouse and skirt combinations were introduced to simplify things somewhat. Fabrics were the same stiff textured cloth of the earlier decade with cotton for summer wear. Daytime colors were brown, rust, gray, and green as well as Scottish plaids. Pale pastels were used for evening wear.

Lace mitts, parasols, and pouch bags with wooden handles were carried by every fashionable lady. Hair was neatly parted and drawn back into snoods. If you wore them for evening wear they had to be ornamented.

During the 1870’s and 1880’s extreme circular skirts were abandoned in favor of full skirts pulled to the rear and supported by a wire cage, the forerunner of the bustle. Corsets were looser, but emphasis was still on the bust. Style innovations included the high collar, long, tight sleeves which eventually morphed into leg-o’-mutton sleeves. Lace jabots and edgings were used at the neck.

As the century wore on costumes were developed for leisure time activities such as croquet.

It might be pointed out that common people and wealthy people didn’t wear the same types of clothes. Those of the common people were far plainer and simpler. They had to be; the common people had to work.

I recommend that you go to http://locutus.ucr.edu/~cathy/weev.html and look at Victorian fashion decade by decade. My information for this article came from What People Wore by Douglas Gorsline.

What do you think, readers? Would you have liked to be a Victorian? Not me. I look awful in hats, and I’d rather die than wear a corset. I couldn’t bear the heat in the summer either. All those layers! And have you ever seen a picture of a real puffed horsehair crinoline? Yuck.

A Hard Sell

I wish I hadn’t done it. I’ve put myself into a bad position here, and I don’t know if I can sell this to you or not. What am I talking about? My book. The Best Selling Toy Of The Season. Yes, I know that the title and the cover scream Christmas, but I promise you the book won’t make you think of the holidays every time you pick it up. The book has 153 pages, and the last mention of Christmas is on page 25. So, if you haven’t had a chance to read it, please don’t hesitate. I promise it’s more than just a Christmas story.

My heroine’s name is Nikki Lane, and she could easily be someone you know. She works at Super Mart, the local discount store and lives in a single wide mobile home in a trailer park that doesn’t have a very good reputation.

She hasn’t been very lucky in love. As a teenager, she fell hard for her first love, Tim, but he abandoned her after she got pregnant the second time. Nikki doesn’t trust men-with the exception of her cousin Dan. If not for his help she’d have to move back in with her parents, and her Dad drinks.

You probably also know someone like my hero Tommy Price. He’s everything Nikki isn’t-wealthy, socially acceptable, and prominent in community affairs. That didn’t keep him from losing the woman he wanted to marry, though. Tommy’s looking for love, but he’s tired of cookie cutter women who’re more interested in his money and his family name than they are him.

Unfortunately, when you’ve been hurt as much as Nikki has it’s hard to trust again. In this excerpt Nikki is talking with her friend and reveals her confusion about her relationship with Tommy.

Nikki counted the hours until Saturday. It had been a long time
since she had wanted to go out with anyone, and of course she felt
flattered that a handsome, wealthy man like Tommy Price had singled
her out.

It felt odd not to discuss her date with Dan, but in this case she
couldn’t. Hopefully, if everything went well, Dan would see that he
was wrong about Tommy.

No, she couldn’t talk to Dan about Tommy, but nothing
prevented her from discussing it with Mandy Wingo, her best friend.
The girls had met at Super Mart where they both worked and had
immediately hit it off.

Mandy wasn’t as pretty as Nikki, but she still had lots of dates. In
fact, more. Both Dan and Mrs. Lane approved of Mandy very much.
They felt that she was a good influence on Nikki, for she had a level
head on her shoulders.

On Friday afternoon after the girls got off work they lingered in
the Super Mart employee break room to discuss Nikki’s date. “I feel
bad about keeping secrets from Dan,” Nikki confessed, “but if I tell
him about Tommy he’ll be so mad. I know that Tommy isn’t
interested in a long-term relationship with me, but Dan’s afraid that
I’ll either get hurt or get pregnant. I don’t blame him; my track record
isn’t too good.”

“Oh, Nikki, I don’t know. Dan’s awfully good to you, isn’t he? I
think you should tell him about Tommy.”

“No way. He’d lecture me for days if he got wind of this.

Anyway, my mother thinks its okay for Tommy and me to go out. She
told me to marry him.”

Mandy shrugged. “I think it’s a good idea myself.”

“Dan said a man like Tommy would never marry somebody like
me.”

“Maybe Dan’s wrong. If you like Tommy, Nikki, go after him.
See what develops.”

“Dan’s usually right,” Nikki said gloomily. “Why would a man
like Tommy Price be interested in me? Millionaires don’t marry girls
who work at Super Mart. Anyway, what would he and I have in
common? I don’t know anything about opera and ballet and stuff like
that, and I don’t have bunches of glasses and forks on the table when I
eat either.”

“He might not like opera or ballet either, and anyone can get a
book to find out which fork to use.”

“But…”

“Nikki, stop making excuses. I’m thrilled for you, and you should
be thrilled too. Your mother’s right. Remember that movie, Pretty
Woman? She got a fairy tale ending; why shouldn’t you?”

Nikki scowled at Mandy. “Because that’s a movie. Real life isn’t
like the movies.”

She decided to keep that thought in mind. She’d made a lot of
mistakes in her life; she didn’t want to make another one.

On Saturday, Nikki hadn’t thought to ask Tommy where they
were going for dinner, but it seemed safe to assume that she needed to
dress up. She spent an hour going through her closet, but truthfully,
she had very little to wear. She couldn’t afford it, but she’d have to
buy a new dress.

So, the next afternoon when she clocked out at work Nikki made
her way to the Super Mart ladies’ department instead of her car. Super
Mart had put their Christmas finery on sale several days earlier, and
customers had picked it over. She hoped she could find something
anyway, for shopping at a more expensive store was out of the
question.

After perusing the racks, Nikki found one dress she liked, a
simple, form-fitting garment made of forest green crushed velvet, and
even though the neckline did plunge a bit, she thought it would do.

She went into the dressing room and tried on the dress, turning
critically from side to side to see how she looked. I like it, she
thought, and with a surge of happiness, she kissed her reflection in the
mirror.

The lipstick on the glass brought Nikki’s spirits crashing down.
She was an idiot. Tommy paid her a little attention, and she spent
money she didn’t have to impress him. She needed to remember that
fairy tales didn’t really come true. Michael and Teddy proved that,
right? If only he didn’t give her butterflies in the stomach every time
she saw him.

She quickly changed into her own clothes and went through the
checkout to pay for her dress.

The Best Selling Toy Of The Season was reviewed by LASR and is up for book of the week. I'd appreciate your vote. That address is http://www.longandshortreviews.com/LASR/recentrev.htm Voting is 1/3-1/4.

Thanks for reading!
Elaine

The Day After Christmas

Okay, Christmas is over, passing in a blur of laughter, food, friends and family, wrapping paper, and cranky, over-stimulated children. It was totally glorious, but I’m so tired I can hardly move. I’m so worn out I’m even thinking that next year I might BREAK SOME TRADITIONS!

Gasp! What horror! How could you? We’ve always done it this way! Yeah, well, my reply is I’m doing it out of self-preservation. Here’s the schedule; see what you think of it.

On Christmas Eve morning we go to my sister-in-law’s house for breakfast. It’s such a lovely gesture on her part. We don’t have to bring a thing. We just go and enjoy eating and being with the family. But we can’t stay as long as we’d like because we have to have to meet our best friends at lunch time to exchange gifts. We can’t visit as long as we’d like with them because we have to get home to cook for the Christmas Eve dinner.

We’d like to take a little nap, but we can’t because if we deviate from our schedule even one little bit we’ll be up half the night catching up.

We have dinner on Christmas Eve with my husband’s family, but we can’t stay as long as we’d like because we have to hurry home to cook for tomorrow morning.

On Christmas morning we have to get up by six o’clock because we have my family coming for breakfast. All we have to do this morning is make coffee and tea, bake a casserole, and warm up the things we cooked last night. The breakfast isn’t fancy, but we do have plenty of it. We’d like to have some more coffee after we get the presents opened, but we can’t because we have to get the house straightened out for dinner. We also have to bake and carve the turkey.

By three everyone is arriving. We eat too much, open some more presents and just generally have a good time. This is the one gathering during the past two days where we don’t have to hurry. After everyone leaves we have to take out the garbage, wash the dishes, scour the kitchen, sweep up the grass and dirt tracked in, and finally we’re finished.

And I haven’t even mentioned washing the Christmas china, pulling out linens, and advance baking I did before Christmas Eve rolled around.

As I said, it’s glorious, but I’m wondering if maybe next year I can cut a few corners. I have to use the Christmas china. I love it so, there’s no compromise there. Now about the food… Who says that I have to bake the turkey? I have a friend who does turkeys for people; I’ll get him to do it. And who says that I have to bake all the desserts? I know a lady who owns a bakery. Why not buy some baked goods from her?

And that breakfast. I love it dearly, but why not simplify the menu a bit? I mean, do we really need four different desserts? I wonder if our friends would be willing to do our gift exchange at a different time, a time when nobody has to rush off.

We’ll see. Maybe I'll remember for next year, but maybe not.

Hope all of you had as wonderful a time as I did.

Please Welcome Linore Rose Burkard

I've got a treat for you today! Readers of regency or inspirational romance will undoubtedly be familiar with Linore's work. Spirit and Sensibility
for the Jane Austen Soul perfectly describes Linore's s work. She specializes in
Fast-paced adventure, falling-in-love, humor, all the Regency atmosphere you could want and feisty heroines who aren't afraid to fall on their knees to pray. Her work is filled with twists and turns when you least expect them and happy ending made in Heaven.

Welcome, Linore. Thanks for stopping by. I know everyone's eager to hear about you and your work. My first question if for Linore the writer.

For the benefit of anyone not familiar with your work, can you tell us how you became a writer? Is it something you always wanted to do?

It’s something I long felt was too exalted a thing for me, little me, to do—write a book! I loved books from the time I could hold them in my hands, and especially from when I started reading; but I thought authors were like a special order of being, not, surely not mere mortals like the rest of us. Now that I’m an author I can say that authors are a certain kind of people—imaginative, persevering, hard-working, and driven. But we clean house and run errands like anyone else!

That's funny because I felt the same way. My husband told me for years I should try to write, but I didn't believe I could. Could you tell us about your writing? What genres do you write in, etc.

I write inspirational romance for “the Jane Austen soul.” In other words, regency romance with a twist of faith. My books take readers back in time to experience life and love during the regency, while inspiring them to believe that God is involved in everyday life. I also think my stories remind us that happy endings are possible for anyone.

Are there any other authors who’ve inspired you?

Jane Austen, Dickens, and Georgette Heyer; as well as Rumer Godden, and one of my childhood favorites, Eleanor Estes. Probably lots of others, too.

It's hard to narrow it down, isn't it? What are your future goals as a writer?
I’d like to be the author who brings the Regency to life for the Christian market the way Georgette Heyer did for the world at large. If I can succeed in tucking in a good amount of fun, wit, and research, alongside of memorable characters and that all-important faith element, I believe I will do it. The reader response to my first book, Before the Season Ends, has been overwhelmingly, even passionately, favourable, so my prayer is that I’ll be able to maintain the same quality of writing in all of my books.

I've read Before The Season Ends and can highly recommend it. In fact I'm looking forward to the sequel The House In Grosvenor Square. Where can we find more information about you and your work?

On my brand new website! I have some truly nifty free resources there for readers, too. If you’re new to the Regency you will really appreciate some of them.

What's that address?

www.linoreroseburkard.com

It's a very pretty website. I love the colors. What do you hope that people will be saying about your work fifty years from now?

That each book was great in its own way; that I was the author who first introduced them to Christian regency romance and they’ve loved it ever since.

That sounds great, Linore. I also a few questions for Linore the person. What three words best describe you as a person?

Authentic (I am what I am!)
Expectant (God slowly reveals his plan for my life)
Diversified (I’m a mom, I have to be!)

If you had an entire day just to have fun and amuse yourself what would you do?

Right now, it would be to go shopping. I’ve been so busy this month I’ve had to do most of my Christmas shopping online. But I prefer to be there, among the bustle and rush of the season. Just long enough, not all day, and then I’d come home and watch “A Christmas Carol,” or a good period film.

Care to share one of your most embarrassing moments with us?

I did that on another blog! But here’s a different one: Once I was driving with my husband and two of our friends, another couple, in the backseat. Mike (my husband) had to get out and check the oil level in the car, and when he climbed back in he was complaining that he had somehow got some oil on his arm. I blurted out, as if I was with one of my kids, “Don’t lick your arm!” To peals of laughter from the backseat, my husband thanked me profusely for reminding him not to lick his arm, since, of course, he was in a terrible habit of doing so. I still get teased about that.

Yes, no doubt you do. If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing with your life?

Spending more time baking, cooking, decorating, going places, playing games with the kids, and making my yard beautiful (gardening). Since I still have my children at home except for one who is away most of the year at college, I have to sacrifice a lot of my other creative outlets to give myself to the writing life. There are rooms I would have wall-papered by now, and some I still haven’t painted that I would have. I try not to take anything away from interacting with my family, but I do choose not to pursue “prettifying” things as much as I’d like.

There's never enough time for everything. Since I became a writer my house isn't quite as nice as it used to look. Thanks so much for talking with me.

Before The Season Ends is available at christianbook.com or at Amazon.com.

A Gift Of Books

Besides being an author, I’m a social studies teacher at our local high school. A month or so ago, I noticed something very unusual going on in my first period class. I was standing in front of the class discussing feudalism with the kids, but three of the girls weren’t listening to me. Not that they always listen to me, mind you, but these girls weren’t talking. They weren’t passing notes, sleeping, or trying to do their homework before it was due. So, what were they doing? They were reading.

Yes, reading, and yes, it’s a very big deal. The majority of my students say they don’t care for reading. They say it’s boring. Almost, I don’t blame them. If I never read anything but textbooks, I’d think reading was boring too.

Okay, they don’t read. Is that a problem? You bet it is! Many literacy skills don’t get developed including reading comprehension, and let’s face it; people who read understand a whole lot more about what’s going on in the world. They score better on standardized tests too, and of course all of you readers know how reading can enrich your life.

What were the girls reading? Twilight. I asked them if it was good, and you should have heard them carrying on. One of them told me she’d never read an entire book in her life until she started Twilight. She was almost finished with it and already had New Moon ready to read. I was so intrigued I bought a copy of Twilight that very day.

I did like the book, but more importantly it impressed on me the need to provide young people with books they can enjoy, books that’ll make readers of them. So, this Christmas please consider a gift of books for any young adult or child on your list. In the long run it’ll be of more use to them than another sweater or video game.

The Victorian Christmas Tree

When we think of Christmas during the Victorian Era, most of us picture a Charles Dickens Christmas complete with a goose or turkey and a Christmas tree, but the English haven’t always had Christmas trees. They were introduced into England in 1841 when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Her husband Prince Albert decorated the first Christmas tree. Albert was from Germany, a place where they’d long used Christmas trees. He decorated a tree for Windsor Castle using candles, candies, and paper chains. The custom spread, and before long all of the English had Christmas trees. So did the Americans.

As time passed, people started to use more elaborate decorations on their trees, including gingerbread men, marzipan candies, hard candies, cookies, fruit, cotton-batting Santas, paper fans, tin soldiers, whistles, wind-up toys, pine cones, dried fruits, nuts, berries, and trinkets of all kinds. They also enjoyed hanging cornucopias filled with sweets, fruit, nuts and popcorn on their trees. Small homemade gifts, such as tiny hand-stitched dolls or children's mittens were also popular. Beautiful angels were the tree toppers of choice, and some families set up a Nativity scene under the tree using moss for grass and mirrors for ponds.

Eventually, people started to use German store bought ornaments which first appeared during the 1860’s. Glass icicles came first followed by hand blown glass globes called kugels. People also liked Dresdens, embossed silver and gold cardboard ornaments in many shapes.

Decorating a Victorian tree today would be pretty simple without investing a great deal of money. Here are a few things I’d do.

1.String popcorn and cranberries to make a garland. The kids should have a great time helping.

2.Shape small paper doilies into cornucopias. Fill with candies of your choice.

3.Recycle old Christmas cards. Cut out shapes you like and attach them to the tree with ribbons to make mock Dresdens.

4.Make or buy small cookies to hang on the tree. You can decorate them with glitter if you like. Hairspray works great as a preservative.

5.Fill small mesh bags with colorful candy and tie them with ribbon.

6.Spray nuts in the shell with gold paint and glue a slender cord to them so they'll hang on the tree.

7.I don’t recommend lighting the candles if you use real ones, but you can buy strings of electric lights in the shape of candles. That sounds a lot safer to me.

8.Don’t forget to fill the tree with small toys. Personally, I’d add some cherubs, another Victorian favorite.

9.Decorative tassels would look beautiful on your tree.

10.Buy some pretty ribbon-Victorians preferred velvet-and shape it into pretty bows or swirls.

11.Fold wrapping paper in the shape of fans and put them on the tree. We used to love making fans when we were kids.

If any of you decide to do a Victorian tree, email me a picture at elainecsc@aol.com and I’ll post it on the blog for others to see.

Oh, and the picture that accompanies this post is from an 1841 engraving showing Victoria and Albert and their children.

It's Here!

The Best Selling Toy Of The Season is now available at http://www.midnightshowcase.com I think it's a great story for Christmas reading because it shows that love can overcome any obstacle, scale any barrier, and happen to anyone-even people who think they probably don't deserve it. And isn't Christms all about love?

Don't forget to check out my web site. I posted a free short story titled Misktaken Identity. Hope you enjoy it.