1850s Gymnastics Outfit

Good morning everyone!  How was your weekend?  Mine was most excellent!  I had a fabulous Independence day, celebrating with my family and eating fish my Daddy caught last week on the Oregon coast.  (Ok, I really ate chicken.  Here's the story...Dad caught some fish and for our Forth of July celebration, he fried it up.  Dinner was ready and I ate my fish right up thinking, "Huh....this tastes just like chicken".  Cody and Colton who both have aversions to eating anything that lives in water, were both happy to discover that the fish had very little "taste".  So, I believed I was eating the fish my Father had cooked for us.  Later I found out from my Mama that chicken had also been fried up for her consumption as she detests everything from the seas.  I laughed at my folly until tears sprang from my eyes, as I had in fact, eaten not fish but the chicken.)  When we returned home from my parents, we sat on the roof and listened to all the fireworks and it was a most glorious sound indeed!

In keeping with my desire to make quite a long list of Victorian-1920s sporting outfits, I decided on an 1850s gymnastics outfit.  This past weekend the outfit was completed and yesterday was the photo shoot.  This particular one was my least favorite one I have ever done.  I was hungry and had the shakes, I was hot, we didn't have mom's faaaaabulous camera and mine was being stupid, and a couple of the poses I was affecting were frankly uncomfortable and painful as I am in no way "in shape".  But take pictures we did (thank you Colton) and shot a new video and here they are!

Again, I used Past Patterns 811, "A Bloomer Costume and The Fashionable Dress from Which it was Made:  Circa 1851-1853".  I decided against the ruching decoration and made the skirt to button up the front.  For the sleeves I used TV447 1863 Sheer Dress.  For research I turned to my Sports: Gymnastics Pinterest board.  The fabric was a happy find at Goodwill.  I'm not sure what the fabric is.  It feels like cotton, linen and wool all rolled up in one.  A burn test showed that it could be any number of these things plus some synthetics added into the mix.  Whatever it is, it wears so wonderfully and is actually quite non hot, which is a bonus!

The below images are of poses I found on Pinterest!  Too fun!

Image found on eBay.

Image found on eBay.  

This pose...this one right here.  WOW!  I am seriously out of shape!!!

This pose was even quite uncomfortable!  And forget doing any sort of gymnastics in this get up!

Image Source:  Building Muscles by Building Minds

Image Source:  The Thanatos Archive

Below are images of me being silly....I couldn't help it! this is just me being me!  hahahahaha!!!

My shoes are the fabulous Gettysburg Victorian Side Lace Boots.  I love these so much as they are flat and don't have a heel to grouch my feet out!  There is also a Blue Gettysburg pair for Pre-Order that would totally go beautifully with this blue outfit, but I'll stick with my brown ones!

My awesome wooden 1 pound dumbbells found at Antique World Mall.

While I really find this outfit to be a fun thing, I am concerned about the plain-ness of it all.  There are several that I found on Pinterest, namely from Val LaBore's Bloomer/Reform Gowns 1850-1900 Pinterest board.  I am wondering if a decoration would be ok, as I would also like to wear this as not just a gymnastics outfit but a Bloomer gown...there are so many lovely ones!!  We shall see what happens with this dress, but for now, it shall remain blue!

I hope you all have a most fabulous week my friends!

Be Blessed!

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