Joanna Bourne

Joanna here, talking about that fashion accessory of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the shawl. Why shawls? We wea...

Abigail Adams, in 1800, saw visiting Frenchwomen wearing Empire-style dresses in Philadelphia and wrote in a letter: "The stile of dr...

Talking about Georgian and Regency bathtubs, here, and the joys of getting clean.    There is a general view that historical people wer...

Hello folks, A treat for you today.  I've invited an expert in antique firearms to talk about a subject near-and-dear to my heart -- p...

Regency Bling The Regency gentleman's code might be summed up as, "no perfumes, exquisitely fine linen and plenty of it, coun...

It's a great pity to do lots of research and find stuff out and then realize you will never be able to use most of it.  Over the last ...

Here we are talking about the headwear of middleclass and working class women in 1794. Women's hats and caps. (With any of these i...

We're back for another installment of the clothing of the working and middle classes in France in 1794. This one is on Aprons and 'P...

Consider  Shifts A shift is what we'd call a 'slip' in the US. The shift lay next to the skin and protected the wearer from th...