The key word is slim fit for the suit. In the Edwardian era, the English cut was narrower in the chest, and the French cut even tighter in tailoring. However, the trend for men’s suits tend to be sold in the looser fit favored by American men, so I’m going to give as close examples as I can find.

Such as this tuxedo by Tommy Hilfiger:

Or this three-piece suit by DKNY:

Next, try on a wing collar shirt, found at Man of Fashion for about $40:

Add a dash of elegance with mother of pearl cuff links from Banana Republic for $39:

Try on an Ascot tie for $39 from Fine and Dandy:

In his 1900 book, Clothes & the Man, Edward Spencer gives directions on tying a proper Ascot tie:

Begin with an Ascot tie. Put the tie round your neck, and let the ends hang level. Tie in a single knot by bringing the left-hand over the right. Pull the end slightly, so that the left-hand one covers the right. (Don’t drag it away from the stud ; if you “find it slipping, tie the knot a little tighter.) Take hold of the left-hand end—which is on the top—and bring it upwards and inwards to the left until it is at right angles to the right. In that position the “wrong” side of the tie (presuming that you are using a tie with a “wrong” side) will be shown ; then fold the right-hand end underneath, showing the “wrong” side in front. Pull the right-hand end through the loop which has been formed by the left-hand end. Pull the right-hand end quite through until it is at right angles to the knot, and in a line with the left hand. The knot is then made, and all you have to do is to let the two ends fall into the proper position, and then secure them with a pin.

You can find a tie pin at Fine and Dandy as well, for $15:

Top off the look with a pocket square tucked into the breast pocket and a boutonniere placed in the top button loop:

To go that extra dandy mile, might I suggest sock garters, gloves (Hugh, Earl of Lonsdale favored canary yellow gloves), and spats to cover your dress shoes? Or perhaps an top hat and cape, if you want to appear more dashing.

And clean shaven is the rule, rather than the exception, as seen in the quintessential Arrow Collar man, as illustrated by J. C. Leyendecker:

Part your hair in the middle, slick it down with a can of brilliantine, check your appearance in the mirror–excuse me, looking glass–make certain your valet dressed you correctly for the time of day, douse your person liberally with sandalwood or vetiver (scents from Geo. F Trumper were favored by Edward VII), and on the swing of a walking stick (neat rapier, or monocle attachment hidden in a secret compartment), stroll like a flâneur down your neighborhood streets this Halloween.

Make Oscar proud.

Since the can-can dancer is a popular costume, there are many options in quality and price points! The biggest trick to pull off is the petticoat: make sure it’s nice and flouncy.

The Petticoat

$50.00 from KMKostume’s Etsy. Here is a fun red petticoat, and one in black.

The Bloomers

$36.50 from Vilicious’s Etsy(These aren’t period correct, but the added bustle in the back gives added movement!). Another option (more correct) from the same seller, are $26.00.

For the bodice, go with a simple peasant top blouse tucked into the petticoat, similar to one found on Etsy, and anchored by a wide belt.

If you want to go a little risque, I refer to the costumes worn by P!nk, Mya, Lil’ Kim, and Christina Aguilera in the music video for Lady Marmalade.

Good corsets can be pricey, but you are paying for comfort and durability, since many of the cheaper costume corsets can be uncomfortable and lacking in quality. There are many modern corsetiers online, many of whom are on Etsy: Glamtastik, La Belle Fairy, La Corset, Lauren Rossi, and GasLamp Corsets, to name a few. Another option for corsets, stockings, and garters are Victoria’s Secret and Frederick’s of Hollywood, as well as your local costume and adult shops.

Tip for the Can-Can Costume:
1. Petticoats. Lots of them, or one big petticoat.
2. Corset, stockings, and garters.
3. Flat slippers, or stripper heels for the bolder
4. Glitz: dog collar necklaces, big hoop earrings, chunky bracelets, chain hairbands, etc.
5. Dramatic make-up and glitter
6. Lace: gloves, stockings, etc.
7. Feathers, headdresses, top hats, and/or big hair
8. Attitude

The Hat

$39.00 from Berkeley Hat

Add White Feathers and Black Feathers to complete the trimming!

The Blouse

$36.00 from Pickled Vintage or the White Victorian Grand Dame Blouse from Restroscope Fashions.

The Skirt

$62.00 from Premiere Designs Historic Clothing or from the Ladies’ Emporium.

The Jacket

$102.00 from FanPlusFriend.

The Boots

$29.80 from Forever21.

The Accessories

$5.80 from Forever21

$8.80 from Forever21

$0.25 from Etsy. Ribbon for choker and ribbon necklace

$4.99 from Amazon

Tips for recreating the Edwardian look, circa 1908-1910:
1. Chokers and filigree-chain necklaces, or multi-strand pearl necklaces
2. Maxi (long) skirts
3. Jackets with lots of buttons and/or embellishments
3. Suede or leather high-top boots
4. High-necked blouses
5. Wide-brimmed hat trimmed with feathers or plumes
6. Gloves

No one looking at the deft and sensitive renderings of the Edwardian era’s wealthy and blue-blooded society would think that John Singer Sargent found portraiture tedious. Yet, had it not been for Sargent’s excellence we would be cheated of his art and of understanding the growth of conspicuous consumption that characterized the lifestyles of the rich and famous of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For that is what a portrait painted by Sargent was—a display of wealth, class and breeding. Nouveaux riche families aspired for landed estates and possibly titles, but they needed the art and treasures to legitimize their new social status. After American and Industrial millionaires ransacked the castles, chateaux, villas, palaces and Schlösser of impoverished aristocrats for priceless art, furniture and furnishings, they turned to John Singer Sargent to detail their ascent up the social ladder in gorgeous detail.

Though Sargent was American by nationality, he was Italian by birth, being born to American parents in Florence, Italy in 1856. He remained loyal to his American heritage, but his formative years were spent in Europe, which gave him a dual outlook (which I find transfers through his paintings; there is a sense “outsiderness,” of emotional distance between he and most of his subjects). Due to his mother’s invalidism, the Sargent family lived like vagabonds across Europe, which prohibited John from obtaining a formal education, but it didn’t prohibit him from exercising the artistic talents he inherited from his parents.

Despite this, Sargent’s art studies were largely self-taught during his formative years, and when he moved to Paris to study under Carolus-Duran, he turned out to be the famed artist’s star pupil. He focused initially on landscapes, but Carolus-Duran’s emphasis on portraiture—as well as the more lucrative positions portrait artists received—influenced Sargent’s foray into painting subjects. His first portrait, as well as his first entry to the Paris Salon, was of Fanny Watts in 1877, which was very well received. It was, however, his bold and aggressive painting of his mentor Carolus-Duran that cemented the direction Sargent’s career would take.

After leaving Carolus-Duran’s atelier, Sargent traveled to Spain, where he soaked up the tragedy and romance of the country, as well as its music and dance. His most expressive and beautiful painting from this period is El Jaleo, a twelve-foot wide canvas depicting a Spanish woman dancing before an accompanying band. Commissions greeted him upon his return to Paris, and he entered his sensuous period, highlighted by the then-scandalous (and nearly ruinous) portrait of Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madame X). This scandal put a definite halt to his career in Paris, and Sargent transferred his atelier to London, where he painted landscapes of the English countryside and for the first time, touched upon the principles of the Impressionists.

Sargent had laid the groundwork for his career in London in the early 1880s, but critics were initially cool towards his paintings. After dickering around the countryside in the wake of the Madame X scandal, he began to paint portraits again, and he burst onto the English art scene in 1887, with Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, a sweet if gentle painting of two young girls lighting paper lanterns in the summer twilight. That same year Sargent set off for America, visiting his mother country for the first time in his life. During his time in Boston he made a connection with his most important champion and patroness, Isabella Stewart Gardner, a famed art collector. Back in London his career entered into a new phase as portrait artist to the wealthy, well-born, and famous. His methods were systematic, unique and economical: he would first visit his client at home to see where the portrait would possibly hang and would review their wardrobe for suitable attire. He either painted in his studio or at the client’s home, and required up to ten sittings, though he would try to capture the face in one. Unlike his peers, Sargent did not sketch on the canvas in pencil, and painted in oil (!!) directly. His sittings were entertaining, as Sargent believed in keeping his subject relaxed and agreeable; he would sometimes play the piano, but always kept up a light patter of conversation while painting. So respected and revered was Sargent, he could command $5,000 per portrait.

The 1890s and early 1900s were the height of his fame. He traveled between England and the United States, where he painted portraits of the latter country’s most influential people, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. His most ambitious project was a commission by Asher Wertheimer, a wealthy London-based art dealer, who wanted a series of family portraits. One of his last major portraits was of the ultra-aristocratic Lord Ribblesdale, whose arrogant pose in slightly rumpled hunting gear was the very image of the “English milord.”

Sargent closed his studio for good in 1907, remarking, “Painting a portrait would be quite amusing if one were not forced to talk while working…What a nuisance having to entertain the sitter and to look happy when one feels wretched.” From then on, he traveled and painted landscapes, even residing in the United States for a year. He painted John D. Rockefeller in 1917, but the rumblings of change in the art scene were upon him, and his work was consigned to the “past,” and was even criticized as being out of touch by Cubists and Futurists. Sargent painted his final portrait of Grace Curzon, the second wife of the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston in 1925, shortly before his death at age sixty-nine.

However much he was criticized by the end of his career, Sargent had the triumph of attaining lasting and lucrative fame while alive, and even as his portrait painting petered out, his art work remained highly-sought after and it was a source of pride to just own an original Sargent painting or sketch.

Visit: John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery

1895-1900 Worth ball gown

Introduction

The spring 2010 exhibition organized by The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, the first drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met. The exhibition, on view from May 5 through August 15, 2010, explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from the 1890s to the 1940s, and how they have affected the way American women are seen today. Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sartorial emancipation. Early mass-media representations of American women established the fundamental characteristics of American style – a theme explored via a multimedia installation in the final gallery.

“The ideal of the American woman evolved from a dependence on European, Old World view of elegance into an independent New World sensibility that reflected freedoms still associated with American women today,” said Andrew Bolton, Curator of The Costume Institute. “The show looks at fashion’s role in defining how American women have been represented historically, and how fashion costumes women into archetypes that persist in varying degrees of relevance.”

1896–1898 Cycle Suit

Exhibition Overview

The exhibition features 80 examples of haute couture and high fashion primarily from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was transferred to the Met from the Brooklyn Museum in January 2009. Many of the pieces have not been seen by the public in more than 30 years.

Visitors walk through time as they enter circular galleries that reflect the milieu of each feminine archetype. Period clothing is brought to life with hand-painted panoramas animated by music, video, and lighting. The first gallery evokes the ballroom of the “Heiress” (1890s), filled with ball gowns by Charles Frederick Worth. Scenes of the great outdoors showcase the athleticism and physical independence of the “Gibson Girl” (1890s) as characterized by bathing costumes, riding ensembles, and cycling suits.

An artistic rendering of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studio in New York provides the backdrop for the “Bohemian” (early 1900s), an archetype represented by Rita Lydig and featuring her signature silk pantaloons by Callot Soeurs. The “Suffragist” and “Patriot” (1910s) have backdrops of archival film footage revealing the gradual political emancipation of women after World War I.

1895 sweater

“Flappers” (1920s) are evoked through simple, practical chemise dresses for day by Patou, and heavily beaded styles for evening by Lanvin and Molyneux, shown against a mural of New York City inspired by the paintings of Tamara de Lempicka. Cinematic representations of the “Screen Siren” presented in a gallery resembling a 1930s cinema, showcase body-cleaving, second-skin bias-cut gowns, including a dress designed by Travis Banton for Anna May Wong in the film Limehouse Blues (1934). In the final gallery, projected images of American women from 1890 to the present explore how American style has evolved from characteristics represented by each of the exhibition’s archetypes.

Designers in the exhibition include Travis Banton, Gabrielle Chanel, Callot Soeurs, Madame Eta, Elizabeth Hawes, Madame Grès, Charles James, Jeanne Lanvin, Liberty & Company, Edward Molyneux, Paul Poiret, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jessie Franklin Turner, Valentina, Madeleine Vionnet, Weeks, Charles Frederick Worth, and Jean-Philippe Worth, among others. A concurrent exhibition of masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection, at the Brooklyn Museum (May 7–August 1, 2010) looks at 19th- and 20th-century masterworks by designers including Madame Grès, Charles James, Claire McCardell, Norman Norell, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Charles Frederick Worth collected by prominent women including Lauren Bacall, Dominique de Menil, and Millicent Rogers. Many of these pieces have never previously been exhibited. This exhibition is organized by Jan Glier Reeder, Consulting Curator of the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [source]

See the Collection Database for a list of works included in this exhibition.

Photographs courtesy of The Met’s Costume Institute

Art
Edmonia Lewis
Meta Vaux Warrick
Henry O. Tanner
E. M. Bannister
May Howard Jackson

Music
Harry T. Burleigh
E. Azalia Hackley
Thomas G. Bethune
Scott Joplin
James Reese Europe
Will Marion Cook
J. Rosamond Johnson
Marie Selika
Flora Batson

Death of Cleopatra, 1876

Critical Response:

Miss Lewis is by no means a prodigy; she has great natural genius, originality, earnestness, and a simple, genuine taste. Her works are as yet those of a girl. She has read Evangeline, and some others of Longfellow’s poems, and has caught from them a girlish sentimentality, but has rather improved upon her author’s conceptions in the process of giving them shape and reality. By and by, when her horizon of knowledge becomes more expanded, and her grasp on it firmer, she will leave the prettinesses of poems, and give us Pocahontas, Logan. Pontiac, Tecumseh, Red Jacket, and, it may be, Black Hawk and Osceola. Or if these may seem too near and real, and admitting less of effective accessories, there lie behind them all the great dramatic characters, Montezuma, Guatimozin, Huascar, and Atahualpa, to say nothing of the Malinche, that lost her country that she might save her love.”
~ J. S. Ingram 1876

The most remarkable piece of sculpture in the American section was perhaps that in marble of The Death of Cleopatra by Edmonia Lewis, the sculptress and protégée of Charlotte Cushman. The great queen was seated in a chair, her head drooping over her left shoulder. The face of the figure was really fine in its naturalness and the gracefulness of the lines. The face was full of pain, and for some reason – perhaps to intensify the expression – the classic standard had been departed from, and the features were not even Egyptian in their outline, but of a decidedly Jewish cast. The human heads which ornamented the arms of the chair were obtrusive, and detracted from the dignity which the artist succeeded in gaining in the figure. A canopy of Oriental brightness in color had been placed over the statue.
~ William J. Clark 1878

An even more remarkable sculpture from the hand of a female artist than Miss Foley’s fountain which was in the Centennial Exhibition was the Cleopatra of Edmonia Lewis. This was not a beautiful work, but it was a very original and very striking one, and it deserves particular comment, as its ideal was so radically different from those adopted by Story and Gould in their statues of the Egyptian Queen. Story gave his Cleopatra Nubian features, and achieved an artistic if not a historical success by so doing. The Cleopatra of Gould suggests a Greek lineage. Miss Lewis, on the other hand, has followed the coins, medals, and other authentic records in giving her Cleopatra an aquiline nose and a prominent chin of the Roman type, for the Egyptian Queen appears to have had such features rather than such as would more positively suggest her Grecian descent. This Cleopatra, therefore, more nearly resembled the real heroine of history than either of the others, which, however, it should be remembered, laid no claims to being other than purely ideal works. Miss Lewis’ Cleopatra, like the figures sculptured by Story and Gould, is seated in a chair; the poison of the asp has done its work, and the Queen is dead. The effects of death are represented with such skill as to be absolutely repellant – and it is a question whether a statue of the ghastly characteristics of this one does not overstep the bounds of legitimate art. Apart from all questions of taste, however, the striking qualities of the work are undeniable, and it could only have been reproduced by a sculptor of very genuine endowments. … the real power of her Cleopatra was a revelation.

Belle da Costa Greene

Belle da Costa Greene summed up her individuality and allure in one phrase: “Just because I am a librarian doesn’t mean I have to dress like one.” The library profession was in its infancy, but this attractive and vivacious woman happened to be the curator of a library owned by one of the world’s most powerful men–J.P. Morgan. When Morgan, who had built up an impressive collection of art, illuminated manuscripts, rare books, and furniture, commissioned Charles McKim to build a library, his nephew Junius, then a student at Princeton, introduced him to Belle, who was working at the university’s library. Her particular specialty was both illuminated manuscripts and getting Morgan’s acquisitions past customs, and from 1905 until his death in 1913, she was his right hand in the construction of a library collection which continues to astonish visitors and scholars. In Belle, Morgan no doubt found his counterpart: she was both witty and remarkably self-confident, and unswervingly loyal to him, reading Dickens and the Bible to him, and even attending an all-night library session with him during the Panic of 1907.

However, Belle’s story didn’t end there. Though her profession and association with J.P. Morgan lent her stature in Gilded Age society, it was her secret which pushed Belle into posterity. For she was not Belle da Costa Greene, but Belle Marion Greener, the daughter of Richard T. Greener, the first black student and graduate of Harvard University, and Genevieve Ida Fleet. Sometime after her parents’ separation, Genevieve took the surname of Van Vliet and moved her children to New York where they passed as white. Belle, though very light-skinned with green eyes, dropped “Marion” for “da Costa,” claiming a Portuguese ancestor should anyone question her racial make-up. She then set about reconstructing her past, claiming a degree from the Pratt Institute, among other credentials, before taking a position in Princeton University’s library and then, of course, with J.P. Morgan.

Belle had virtual carte blanche to purchase works of art and priceless objects of which she felt Morgan would approve, purchases which required frequent visits to Europe. There she dazzled the more Bohemian elements of society with her striking gowns and her exotic looks. She also clashed with the male-dominated art world, possessing an intelligence and intuition which allowed her to steal away wonderful finds from beneath the noses of her competitors. She never married (when a lumber magnate proposed, she cabled “all proposals shall be considered alphabetically after my fiftieth birthday”), but she did conduct torrid affairs, the most lasting with Bernard Berenson, a preeminent art critic with an expertise in the Renaissance, who himself masqueraded as “white” (born as Bernhard Valvrojenski) during this time of ethnic/racial conflict.

This is not to say that Belle’s ambiguous appearance and choice to choose her racial classification was wholeheartedly accepted. Morgan’s art rival Isabella Stewart Gardner, was known to have hinted about Belle’s race in her letters to friends, and artist Marcel Duchamp is said to have created art under his pseudonym “Rrose Sélavy” to poke at her secret. After Morgan’s death in 1913, he willed her $50,000 (a considerable sum for 1913) and she retained her position at the Morgan Library until her retirement in 1948. When Belle died two years later, at the age of 67, she burned all of her papers. Despite the limitations placed on those of African descent, Belle was an enigma and an anomaly not simply because of her position with J.P. Morgan, but because of her own savvy and determination to create her own life outside of societal color lines, gender lines, and sexual lines.

In one way, the rise of Expressionism and Cubism could be seen as a reaction to the globalization of society. As colonialism spread throughout Asia and Africa, as well as the South and North poles, Europeans and Americans came in contact with peoples only hardy explorers of the past were able to meet. Also, this time witnessed the birth of modern anthropology. Though scientific racism retained its hold upon greater social thought, exploration began to turn its emphasis from conquer to the study and cataloging of non-European peoples and their customs.

The seeds for the Armory Show were sown at one of the artistic “Evenings” held by Mrs Mabel Dodge, a “400″ socialite who worked her darndest to become the “queen of Greenwich Village.” The 69th Regiment Armory for the National Guard located at on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets was chosen by organizers Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, and Walter Pach as the perfect venue for this show of modern art. Though the Metropolitan Museum of Art bravely purchased Paul Cézanne’s Hill of the Poor to symbolize their willingness to accept modern art, others were not so happy with the descent of art from nice, safe portraits, landscapes and still-lifes into dots and dashes across the canvas. Despite the rumbling of dissent, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors trundled on. The date for the show was from February 17th to March 15th, 1913, and the armory was home to approximately 1250 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over 300 European and American artists.

Among the artists whose work was to be shown were Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Marcel Duchamp, Raoul Dufy, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Many of the artists were known and respected, so the audience and art critics waiting to view these 1250 paintings were not too alarmed by the roster. But when they did feast their eyes upon the exhibition, most of New York was stunned. Lloyd Morris recounted the “outrage and protest [which] flared up in newspaper headlines” and “Cubism, futurism, post-impressionism became issues in a battle that engaged the general public.” Critics were baffled by Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, and were incensed by Matisse’s nudes, Picasso’s cubist paintings, and Constantin Brancusi’s roughly-hewn block. Former President Theodore Roosevelt condemned all modernists as lunatics, and many critics considered the more provocative art exhibited to be the work of degenerates, and described the Armory Show a “bedlam in art,” comparing cubism to prehistoric cave drawings.

In the midst of this furor, modern art did have a small, but growing number of supporters, which included Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who was to receive lasting fame for her art studios in Greenwich Village and the museum she founded in 1931. Many art collectors found much to admire in this new art movement, and more than a few wealthy art patrons included early Picassos among the then-priceless works by Rubens and Holbein the Younger. Ironically, for all the castigation the show received in the press and the public, it went on to tour Chicago and Boston to equal doses of acclaim and horror. The outcome of the Armory Show was but one of the many pre-WWI forces that shaped both modern culture and society in the coming decades. The Modernists took inspiration from non-European arts and looked forward rather than looking back to old masters, thereby forging not only a new path for art, but enabled them to stand on their own merits as artists.

Further Reading:
1913: an End and a Beginning by Virgina Cowles
Online exhibition recreating the Armory Show
ArtLex on the Armory Show
The 69th Regiment Armory Show
The 69th Regiment Armory