Thanks for the images, Arashi -- they're great.

Oh and I went digging and found some more period costuming links:

http://www.fashion-era.com/index.htm
This one has a lot of detailed info and images from 1800-forward.  Large sections on the Regency, and Victorian(which covers for DS purposes both 1840 & 1897 storylines).  Mostly women's, because once you hit the Victorian era, mens clothes changed very little throughout the era -- think mens suits now and how little they changed throughout most of the 20th C.

http://www.victoriana.com/library/harpers/funeral.html
More stuff on mourning customs and costumes

http://www.victoriana.com/Victorian-Fashion/
General stuff on Victorian fashion.  The parent site has resources on just about everything victorian, from furnishings to history.  Really addictive for those into accuracy when they write fanfiction.

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2974454-action-imgsearch-house_of_victorian_visions_bridal_museum_anaheim-i
The site for the victorian bridal museum I mentioned seems to be gone (hope the museum didn't meet a similar fate!) but this is a link where the images from the site are stored for some reason.  Note the dress in the forefront of the picture marked P23 -- and compare it in your mind to Ghost Beth's dress. Those who are inclined toward fanfiction might then wonder about the original pre Barnabas interference reality in which Beth died wearing a wedding dress....

And a link to some amusing factoids about marriage in Victorian times: http://members.aol.com/alfson102/marriage.htm

Now that I've started wondering -- thanks to the great posts here -- about the 1795 costuming, I may go digging for some similar resources for that time period.  Until I get to dig into the dvds all I have is a general memory that the costumes seemed close to if not exact for period, and no costume I saw stuck out like a sore thumb and made me howl at its obvious inaccuracy.

I just hope that the DVD cases and artwork will be consistent with the initial 26 Barnabas/Bramwell collections.  That just makes it look much better on the bookshelf.

Hmm, maybe it's just me.  Until recently the only dvd's I had were the 1897 ones, which are in nice slim cases. But the 1795 ones which I just got during Deepdiscountdvd's sale came in a different kind of a box.  A lot larger, thicker and CLUNKIER.  I hope it's just old stock and the cases for the later dvd's are the kind they will be using for the new releases.

Pansity, when you come across the scene again, do please share it! 

Be glad to, whenever it may be.  I now have three dvds of 1795 calling my name...

The family could have worn mourning garb for Jeremiah, but as far as the rest of the world was concerned Barnabas had sailed off to England. How strict were standards for widows at that time? I know about wearing black for a year, but I've just recently begun reading Gone with the Wind and in it it's mentioned that Scarlett would have to wear knee length veiled black bonnets for three years, shortened to shoulder length after three. Were widows expected to wear mourning regalia for that long?

I think the period around Gone With the Wind was pretty close to when Albert died, and Victoria turned mourning into a cottage industry. I have (or had, since it's gone a bit moribund from lack of interest) a yahoo group for discussion of real history and Dark Shadows, and I found a link I had posted there on mourning customs.  http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Quarter/2926/Mourning.htm

This covers some of Colonial times as well, and they claim that there wasn't much in the way of mourning rituals then, so the whole thing of mourning for Jeremiah, Barnabas, Naomi et al may be a moot point.  Of course, when it comes to net resources your mileage tends to vary, so I would check this against a google of other similar resources. I used to have a bunch more links on this, but can't put my hands on them at the moment.

Now that you mention it, the only character I can think of (in 1897 at least) who 95% of the time remembered his hat when out and about was the infamous Reverend Trask.

Speaking of 1897, wouldn't the servants have been given some sort of standard uniform to wear? Or were servants allowed to wear garments of their choice within reason?

Incidentally three of my favorite costumes on the ladies were Josette's form-fitting striped dress she wore just after Angelique put the whammy on her in 1795, and Beth's striped dress (that's in your icon!) I also loved the pink dress Angelique wore with the fur lined cape when stalking Aristede on the docks. That really was a spectacular dress, I wonder why they only used it (to my knowledge) that one time.

No matter the time period I *love* the suits on the men. Three piece suits are so damn sharp looking. I admit to being incredibly partial  frock coats though.

Oh good, I was wondering whether there would be interest in this topic and I come home to all these great posts!  Think I better break up my responses though else this post will be longer than Moby Dick.

The hat thing is amusing -- I remember ONE instance in 1897 where Quentin wore a hat, and I think only one with Edward.  Both were at the beginning of the storyline.  Edward wore a beaver the whole time he was bringing Rachel to Collinwood, and MIGHT have worn one once or twice after that.

With Quentin, its amusing -- in the first scene where we see him, he wears a hat for I think the first and last time -- might even be that hat of Edward's which I think might be the same one they used for Trask.  But what cracks me up with that scene with Quentin is that he's NOT wearing that suit that went all through 1897.  Or rather, he's only weaaring the frockcoat of it -- with a pair of fawn colored riding britches and riding boots.  Makes sense, he HAD just gotten in.  But the humor was in Selby's handling of the frockcoat -- he keeps swishing it around and wrapping himself in it like a bathrobe.  And it was far from the first time the guy had done Victorian for a role, so one wonders whether it was nervousness, lack of props to play around with for business with his hands -- or whether the riding britches that were never seen again were way too tight for him to be comfortable.

Servants having a uniform?  Might have, maybe something simple like a plain black or navy dress for the women. Beth wore that a couple times, along with the silly maid hat (as opposed to the silly hat that went with that nice striped outfit of hers  - I like that dress too!).   Beth is an anomaly though, being a LADIES maid, which was NOT really a maid the way we think of one, but a combination dresser, social secretary and companion.  They were usually from good family who either had no money or who had lost their money and they looked after the ladies rooms, things and kept up her clothing. They tended to get the mistress' cast off dresses, which they remade for themselves, which certainly explains how well Beth always dressed.

Favorite costumes -- most of the specific ones I can think of are from 1897, simply because I haven't seen 1795 since it was on Sciffi (though I just got the dvds and its just a matter of getting the time to watch).  In addition to Angelique's pink one (I really disliked her green one by the way) and Beth's striped number, I also liked Ghost Beth's dress, which WAS likely a wedding dress.  I found one which was almost its twin on a site for a Victorian bridal museum. (amusing thing when I was trying to get a screen cap of the dress, as I was using it in a story I recently finished.  -- in the scene where Chris is poisoned in the cottage, she bends down to look at him and you see that Terry Crawford was wearing generic ladies white pumps, NOT period.  The Dan Curtis budget strikes again!)

Judith also had a number of lovely dresses throughout the storyline despite the fact that in reality, by the end of the storyline she wouldnt' even have been out of mourning for Grandmamamama yet, much less Jenny and Carl, etc.

No wonder David Selby was so whiney in PT. He was wore out. 

And don't forget that in this same time period he also had a young infant at home, who, if I did the math right, wasn't yet two.

 

Forget Grandmamamamamma Edith's secret -   I'd settle for Selby's secret of how to operate on all cylinders with that little sleep.

 

But, we do this show got by on the seat of its pants.  Continuity was not a strong point.

That's putting in mildly.  One glitch which I never see mentioned is one I think I only noticed  because its a fact I just happened to know.

In one of the last storylines, must have been 1840, Angelique is talking about her background and happened to mention being from Martinique, IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES.     Nice little adjustment of the Space Time Continuum there.    Would I have noticed that if my grandmother hadn't been born and raised in the British West Indies?  Who knows.