Which AG has the most authentic clothing?

Which American Girl has the most authentic clothing based on their class, and time period???
I was looking through a book on Colonial times and most of the pictures of girls I saw had dresses that looked somewhat like Felicity's summer gown, but nothing like her meet, school, or birthday dress.
So just how accurate are their clothes?

I'd think Samantha......but I definetly don't know for sure.

Felicity's meet dress would be more accurate if Felicity were just a couple of years older. Her school dress is very accurate, and very American in style. Kirsten's clothing is very accurate except that new midsummer dress. The colors are too bright and there's too many ruffles. Kit's clothes are really accurate too. I'm not quite as sure about her meet outfit, it doesn't fit in to me, but I'm not sure. Well, there ya go, that's that history degree coming into use yet again!!! [img]wink.gif[/img]

Kirsten's seem realistic to me, for the most part.

I have posted on this subject several times lately on other threads so you'll have to hoparound threads to read all I wrote on this, but it would be a tie between Kaya and Kit. Least authentic by a very large margin would be Samantha. Not just her clothes - her furnishings as well. However, she does boast the only dress we know for sure was taken from an actual garment ( it is pictured in her World book). And it is accurate to the year. It even hangs right, which is the thing the company has the hardest time with with her period. If I ran the zoo I'd make her clothes out of rayon, which is the heaviest fabric, so things would drape properly. It was in her era that they first began weighting cheaper silks by soaking them in zinc, to give a better 'hand' to them.

I have a background in fashion history but my area is more recent than Felicity or Josefina. I'd have to check books, but I can if you want. Not sure what I have on Josefina, though I have an excellent book on the pioneer women of Texas, so I could tell you what teh women coming in to take over the land wore.

Some time ago I did check on Kaya, and she is true to her tribe. I have heard that they met with elders of the Nez Pierce tribe who ensured everything was Nez Pierce. So she would tie with Kit except that they managed to give Kit a couple slightly dated items ( like her phone ) which makes her seem that much more real.

Kirsten is pretty well appointed and Addy is a mixed bag. Pleasant Company has a bit of a guilt complex where wealth is concerned. They cannot bring themselves to give either Addy or Nellie rags, and yet, let's be real - that is what they'd have had. I am partial to Addy, but can't buy her Christmas dress tale - no way. Sheesh, I was raised in the South and that tale would not have happened here in my own childhood, let alone 1864.

I'd have used the fabric from her petticoat ( the red) for her Meet dress, because that red was so common, and the pink doesn't feel right, unless it is meant ot be faded red. I have two books on dating fabrics so I will check, but pink ( with brown) were big colors about 1870, so I think it's a little early. Dark browns, navy's, black and white, red and indigo blue are more common. I've seen a lot of photos of slaves, and most were in solid, not print dresses. Not hand me downs either - their own style - much like the Meet dress. You sometimes saw blocks of color -in clothes (patching?) almost like Amish quilts. I don't buy that she was able to improve her wardrobe anytime soon afer escaping. Her hair is probably wrong too, and I would guess Pleasant was uncomfortable doing her hair in the more traditional slave styles. I'm not condeming her for this - I think she had to make decisions in unchartered territory, and chose to err on the safe side.

Some of Molly's things are 1950's. Her birthday dress uses too much fabric (rationing, mind you) I remember wearing a very similar dress to a birthday party in 1957. I believe her pin the tail game was not made for another 10 years but I could be wrong ( anyone know?) . Her Christmas dress is perfect, as are her Rt 66 and Victory Garden dresses. But her mary janes are probably wrong. She'd have had a pair of salt water sandals or espadrilles, and some heavy brown shoes for play. I remember when Saddle oxfords were a big fashion item and it was 1958. I cannot recall ever seeing them in earlier magazines or ads.

Plastics were a big hobby in Molly's day, You could buy all kinds of forms of it and make stuff. I have a ring some service guy ( or prisoner?) carved out of plastic, encased in it is a photo. I have soem sheets of cellaphane for making belts with although I've never figured out how ( some kind of origami I think).Molly might have made printed fabric or screened her own christmas cards. Weaving was popular. Remember potholder looms? They came in all sizes and rectangles as well as squares and you made clothes from them.

Kit and molly both might have made all kinds of things from gum wrappers. Belts were popular as were boxes,picture frames and necklaces. Oh, and taken the cork out of the back of a bottle cap, and made a pin out of the cap by putting it on the outside of their shirt and holding it on by sticking the cork back in from the back.

Popsie

Popsie,

I would be interested in what you could find out about Felicity's clothing. I have searched the internet, but I can only find bits and pieces of info here and there and it mostly pertains to adult clothing. Thanks!

I also am interested in Felicity's dress. I hope her things are accurate. They are so pretty.

The Colonial Williamsburg website has an educational feature about the clothes that were worn in that time period.

www.colonialwilliamsburg.com

Lori, Felicity, Willow and the Hitties...

I'll do a little research then. I do know that children and adults wore identical clothing, so you don't have to worry about finding information specifically on children's clothes.

Also, her clothes might be wrong fabrics of colors or a bit off timewise, but she doesn't own anything that has the glaring mistakes Samantha's bridesmaid dress has.

Another oddball dress is Kirsten's purple polka dot one. I am still trying to figure out where they got the inspiration for that one. I'm always wary when I see short sleeves on a dress of most early periods. There was too much concern about sun exposure for that, out on the prairie, and it is not what we'd expect, even if girls back in Baltimore wore such things in their parlors. And the big wide spaced spots - definately not typical. I'm okay with atypical, but I want it explained in the story, since these dolls are supposed to give us a glimpse of the time period, which means typcial.

I have two books for dating textiles. My big encyclopedia of textile degins shows a couple fabrics from France that were made in 1873, but fabric that scale was for humans - what she has wasn't seen untill at least the 1920's. Consider her location - she had access only to the most common prints. Dress fabrics of her day were usually busy patterns - there were ditzy's - small floral prints, with some spacing between them, but the spacing was small and most often had a sort of veining or dotting in a lighter color in between. Geometric shapes were less common and were not an even dot, but something to make it less of a perfect circle.. As for color -purples faded and so what we see today are browns - I can't say how bright a purple woudl hve been available, but this ine is synthetic looking, and the white is too white.

I know it's hard to imagine a time period having fewer choices than we have, but consider they did not have synthetic dyes, and there were other constraints. Here is the color pallete for 1830-1860 (so true for both Addy and Kirsten):

Backgrounds were white or ivory or what looks like graygoods ( unbleached cotton)

I don't know what people were wearing in Sweden that she could have brought with her - probably she wore more traditional dress. Brigitte might know more about when people in less traveled parts of Europe started giving up native costumes for universal fashions.

Fabrics, were still European imports, or influenced by same, but made in the rapidly growing American mills.

BTW, sewing machines were first invented between 1833 and 1834, but not available to the general public until 1856.

A lot of what the AG girls wear lacks accuracy simply because untill a very few years ago fabrics were not being reproduced from vintage swatches. Now they are. I hope to see AG take advantage of that. Kit's birthday dress is one example where they did do that.

UPS just dropped off 6 boxes - yipee!

Popsie

I coudl be wrong but I thought Kirsten's meet dress was supposed to be calico.
I might do some looking into Felicity's clothes. Like in that book I saw most of the dresses were similar to her summer gown. They were long, white, lacy, with the same cut, and I think had a ribbon around the front for decoration. (I wonder if they did that so they could change ribbons without changing dresses.) I remember once as a girl I asked my Mom why Felicity wore the same dress all the time. I had just read Meet Felicity and the book spans over a long period of time, but she only wears the meet dress. My mom said that clothes were more difficult to wash then, so you had to make do with the same dress a lot. She said you had work clothes and nicer clothes you only wore when you weren't working so they wouldn't get as dirty or smelly.

As for Kirsten I always thought she looked accurate though I have heard the polka dot dress isn't. I also have read that her Saint Lucia gown is not accurate because that tradition didn't start until after Kirsten's time.
I think with Addy even though most of her clothes seem fancier than what she would really have, she is a doll, and children want dolls with pretty dresses. It's usually collectors who care more about how authentic it is.
I think some of Addy's clothes are really pretty. I don't know if they are accurate, but I think her blue school dress isn't only pretty it also is very sharp.
If Molly's clothes are off by ten years that makes some sense. My mom went to grade school in the fifties and said she had a jumper just like Molly's school dress and a pair of saddle shoes to go with it. But then again when I was little I had a pair of saddle shoes too.