Victorian Tea Event at New Concord Library

In May, I was invited to the New Concord Library to do a Victorian Tea Event. I did a brief talk about Victorian history and major highlights of it, a dress demo in my early bustle dress so that everyone could see the layers, and we made fans and calling cards afterward while enjoying tea and nibbles.

We ended up having a small group of ladies attend, but it was nice because we got to go over a bunch of questions, including, "how did ladies use the restroom in those dresses?" and people were able to look at my stash of artifacts more closely. It has been a while since I did one of these events, and I always have so much fun doing them. While I may not know EVERYTHING about the Victorian Era, even just the basics is a great jumping off point for some people because, for example, they may not know just how much the royal families of Europe were intermingled through marriages, or the shifting silhouette lines of the 1850s through 1900.

For this event, I tried something new where I dressed myself in historical attire rather than dressing a mannequin. By dresing myself, it definitely allowed people to see how someone might dress on their own and debunk the myth of "it took forever to get dressed!" In addition, it allowed me to free up a mannequin and dress it in a spare outfit to put on display for people to look at and examine.

As an added bonus, I got to see one of my long-time friends from college for the first time in a couple years and her daughter!