Props, Scenery, Costumes and Makeup: 1890's/Ragtime era costumes

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1890's/Ragtime era costumes

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Props, Scenery, Costumes and Makeup
Forum Discription: For how-to's and where-can-I-find
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2320
Printed Date: 10/31/25 at 4:49am
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Topic: 1890's/Ragtime era costumes

Posted By: neilfortin
Subject: 1890's/Ragtime era costumes
Date Posted: 3/29/07 at 12:03pm

Hey All! I am currectly costuming a show taking place atduring the late 1890's into the turn of the century and I was wondering if anyone had pictures of costumes from this time period. Drawings that i can find online are great but unfortunatly they dont always give great represenations. Photos are muhc more helfpul. Anything would be of great use to me. thanks! Sorry if there are many mispellings in this posting...i can't see what I am typing into the box. haha.

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Replies:

Posted By: Nanette
Date Posted: 3/30/07 at 7:17am

A great place to find anything would be the Costumer's Manifesto (costumes.org). The link for costume history is: http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/costhistpage.htm - http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/costhistpage.htm

You can also usually find some great photos if you google (click on image) the time period or specify exactly for what you're searching (EG: 1890 clothing male).

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In a world of margarine, be butter!

Posted By: teridtiger
Date Posted: 3/30/07 at 10:58am

I also take inspiration from movies set in a similar era. The Costumer's Manifesto is a great jumping off point.

With a story like "Ragtime", you have many different types of people from different regions and different class levels. Movie research is really good for that kind of stuff.

You are also dealing with some actual historial figures in"Ragtime". Like Evelyn Nesbitt. Joan Collins played Evelyn in a movie called "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing". A quick Google image search revealed the following pics, including some of the real Evelyn Nesbitt: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=The%20girl%20in%20the%20red%20velvet%20swing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi - http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%22The%20girl%20in%20the%20red%20velvet%20swing%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Also, Google image search "Ragtime". Chances are, you will stumble across pictures from other theatres' productions. See?

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=ragtime - http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=%22ragtime%22

Posted By: neilfortin
Date Posted: 4/02/07 at 12:59pm

Thank you very much!! The Costumer's Manifesto is great, I have used it before, however, at points it can get frustrating when some links dont work and others only lead you to things you have seen before. I always forget about google photo search, what a great tool! Thanks

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