Vintage Reference Library
Costume, dance and refreshment resources, useful suppliers
and reprints of period articles

Select one of the following subjects that you'd like additional information on:

• Regency or Federal Era Evening Dress for ladies.
   
• Regency or Federal Era Evening Dress for gentlemen.
   
• Mid-19th Century, or 1860s/Civil War era Evening Dress for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Late 19th Century, or The 1890s/Belle Epoque Evening Dress for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Early 20th Century, or 1910s/Ragtime Evening Dress for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Early 1920s, or Early Jazz Age Evening Dress for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Evening Fashions Timeline: 1800-1870 for Fezziwig’s Ball for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Period Day Dress for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Clothing worn at Daytime events at the Newport Vintage Dance Week
   
• Newport Costume Resource (pdf) covers evening dress and day dress styles for both ladies and gentlemen.
   
• Sewing Notions and Fabric Suppliers includes silk suppliers, corset supplies, period style patterns, men's formalwear and books illustrating period styles.
   
• Etiquette Hints (and admonishments) from period sources.
   
• Civil War Ballroom Refreshments covers an introduction the reciepts for popular refreshments of the mid-ninteenth century ballroom.
   
• Christmas Cakes and Plum Puddings, 1921 (pdf) an article from The Delineator, 1921, with recipes including plum pudding, fruit cake and icings.
   

If you would like additional costuming ideas take a look at the fashions of the 19th and early 20th Centuries on Katy Bishop's Vintage Victorian website.