Rose, Exposed - A ‘Biased’
View of 1930s Fashions
Thank
you for hosting me today. I’m excited to discuss 1930s fashions and my recent
release, Rose, Exposed, a
multicultural historical erotic romance set in the 1930s.
This
post is part of the official Rose,
Exposed Blog Tour (3/26 - 4/09).
The
grand prize for the tour is vintage-style rose earrings for pierced ears (U.S.
shipping address only).
To
be eligible, COMMENT on this post. Comment should include the historical time
period and geographical setting (when and where) you’d most like to see in a
romance.
A ‘Biased’ View of 1930s Fashions
When
I wrote Rose, Exposed, clothing was
a big part of my research. I don’t pay a lot of attention to clothes in the
first draft. I’m too busy getting down the plot, dialog, and love story. My
characters are so eager to get the clothes off they don’t want to be slowed
down. During the polishing stage, however, I consider a lot of factors when
dressing my characters -- time period, setting, climate, socioeconomic status,
personality, plot, and color symbolism.
For
my current release, I dressed my hero in simple work clothes because he does
physical labor for a living. I emphasized his earthiness with tan homespun and
green fabrics. My heroine is in a higher social class but her parents are
strict and old-fashioned. Accordingly, I dressed her in nicer fabrics with
conservative styles. Because her name is Rose, I made the first dress she
appears in a rose print.
Undergarments
and hosiery go hand-in-hand with clothing because some can’t be worn without
the other. The fact that Rose hates stockings and rarely wears them added to
her character. Underwear was a struggle for her too. She went from wearing
old-fashioned bloomers to sometimes none at all, enhancing the theme of having
her secret exposed.
When
I research clothing, I consult a reference book on my bookshelf, which has
fashion illustrations for various time periods for men and women. I also use
Google’s Images feature a lot. Finding just the right look gives me ideas and
helps me visualize what I want. I look at several old sewing patterns and
vintage clothes on eBay.
Of
all the garments in this book, I had the most fun with evening gowns. While
women’s fashions in the 1920s and 1940s tended to form straight lines, dresses
and skirts in the 1930s flared from and draped around the body, created
beautiful feminine curves. When a woman spins around, the dress cascades around
her in a beautiful swirl. The secret to this is cutting fabric on the bias. If
I weren’t a life-long seamstress, that research fact might have sounded Greek
to me, so I’ll illustrate it for everyone.
Fabric
is woven, so it has both vertical and horizontal grains (warp and weft) at
right angles to each other. In clothing, the vertical grain goes straight down
your body, from collar or waistband to hem. Go to your closet and select a
shirt. Try grabbing a piece of the fabric and another piece a couple of inches
below it. No give, right? It’s as strong as steel. Try it horizontally and you
get the same thing. Now try it with diagonal points and the fabric magically
stretches. This is the bias.
Today,
sewing patterns with ruffles specify cutting the piece on the bias. The stretch
makes the fabric more elastic, allowing a narrow hem to be formed along the
curved edge of the ruffle. Even then, sewing a perfect ruffle hem is tedious.
In
the 1930s, especially, entire skirts or dresses were cut on the bias. Pattern
pieces are printed with lines on them that you match to the grain of the
fabric. For a straight skirt, picture the line going straight from top to bottom.
For bias skirts, put that line on a 45 degree angle. The following illustration
shows a pattern piece on a piece of fabric for each. Solid arrows represent the
grain line, and the dashed line is the center line of the garment. The
crosshatch shows the weave of the fabric.
Fabrics
suited for these fluid evening gowns, as shown in the illustration below from
left to right, include: chiffon, crepe-de-chine, silk, and satin.
To
read more about the bias cut and 1930s fashions, see:
Rose, Exposed
Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing
Release
Date: 27 March 2013
eBook
ISBN #: 978-14199-45205
(I
love creating trailers for all my books!)
Blurb
When
Leroy Johnson gets promoted at the new oyster plant on Pearl Point, all he
cares about is working hard. When he meets the flirtatious artist Rose
Wainwright, however, nothing matters except getting her to the altar and into
bed. Healing from a recent loss, he’s not about to let her go too.
Because
Rose’s strict, social-climbing father doesn’t approve of dark-skinned Leroy,
they court in secret anyplace they can find. Although Leroy’s raw passion can
convince her to do almost anything, why can’t he understand she needs freedom,
not marriage?
Her
father wants her to be white, but Leroy wants her to be black. Playing both
sides of the fence leaves this young biracial beauty exposed in more ways than
one.
Excerpt
(modified)
Rose,
Exposed - Copyright © AFTON LOCKE, 2013 - All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave
Publishing, Inc.
“You’re
so…dark,” she exclaimed. Instead of the disdain he expected, he heard
fascination.
Come on, lady. Don’t
tell me you’ve never seen a colored man before.
“Yes,
I’m dark,” he agreed as he politely removed her hand, “which is why it’s not a
good idea for us to sit alone together in this car. Someone might come along
and jump to the wrong conclusion.”
A
conclusion that could get him beat up or worse with the Klan close by on Oyster
Island.
But
before he could stop her, she clasped both sides of his face and pressed her
sweet mouth to his. Aw, hell. A man
only had so much self-control, and she’d just shattered his. Unable to stop
himself, he plundered her delicate mouth. Her lips reminded him of rose petals,
and he sucked the sweetness out of them as if he were a bee. The more he
tasted, the more he wanted.
She
opened, giving him access to her even sweeter tongue. Taking a big breath, he
pulled away from her.
“We
can’t do this. You’re white.”
She
looked down at her upturned palms. “Then I really do look white?”
Leroy
frowned. “Aren’t you?”
For
the first time, her smile disappeared, making him shiver in his wet clothes.
“The truth is, I don’t know what I am. I suppose that’s why I took this foolish
drive.”
She
must be biracial then, he realized, and not forbidden after all. The thought
made him want to dance on the hood of the car. She still looked white, though.
If he didn’t have the time to court a girl his own color, he sure didn’t have
any for a complicated one like this.
“Kiss
me again,” she demanded.
Without
waiting for him to answer, she locked her hot, damp mouth on his again and
tugged hard on his shoulders. Before he knew it, he was on top of her on the
front seat. He wished her dress weren’t so thin when long, slender legs shifted
restlessly under his. Dizzy with the scent of rain and her, he froze.
At
that moment, nothing mattered except having her. He didn’t care if the entire
Klan showed up, knocked on the window and caught him making love to her. It had
been too damn long since he’d had a woman. He needed to stop this while he
still could.
“Do
you know what you’re asking for?” Lust had turned his voice into a husky croak.
She
laughed and touched his face again. “I don’t know. What am I asking for?”
This
girl was crazier than he’d first thought. What if someone less honorable than
himself had stopped instead? She could’ve been raped.
“A
whole lot of trouble.” He sat up. “Look, this is not the time or the place. Now
let’s get you home.”
The
sooner he could be rid of her—before she derailed him from his job, family, and
everything else that mattered—the better.
WIPs Coming Soon
Rose,
Exposed
is the sequel to Plucking the Pearl, an interracial historical erotic romance.
I
have two more books planned for the Oyster
Harbor series. Next up for romance are Sadie and Henry.
In
addition to interracial/multicultural historicals, I also plan to keep writing
erotic contemporaries.
Can
an older woman find love with a hot male stripper? My current WIP, Two
Hours to Entice, will answer that question.
Where readers can find me
Don’t
miss the book signing on Oct 13th.
I’m
also hosting a Fabulous Fusion workshop with Koko Brown and Eve Vaughn to
celebrate interracial erotic romance for EC’s Fusion line.
5 comments:
Great post. I never really considered the meaning of the different cuts of cloth and style. Was there a reason for its change at this time? The only sewing I do is counted cross stitch so as much as I live vintage style...would never have been able to make it.
;)
:-) Who knows why fashions change, Loni. I think they change for the sake of change. (I'm glad I kept my spike heels!) Dresses were very boyish in the 1920s and I think it swung the other way to compensate.
Fascinating post! I knew certain patterns were cut on the bias, and had been given an explanation I didn't understand - but you made it much more understandable! Thanks, Afton.
Thanks, Laura! Glad I could help you visualize it.
That was fascinating.
1800s Brazil
bn100candg at hotmail dot com
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