Consider this contemporary engraving of a woman by Wenceslaus Hollar, from around the mid-1700s:
Sadly, I am a complete moron when it comes to clothing. If I look at that picture, I see a woman wearing an old-timey dress thingy, with a hat thingy on her head. But for some reason, that description wouldn’t go over very well in a published work of fiction. So, what the heck are these things called?
1. I’m calling this a bonnet, whether it is or not.
2. Is this a corsage? Is this a prom? I guess it’s a bow (cloth, not composite), but shouldn’t it have a better name?
3. I’d be tempted to call this a shawl, but it appears to be attached.
4. It sort of looks like a cuff, but there’s probably a more frilly name for this, probably made from the same material as part 3.
5. This is the “dress.” I guess. I would presume this is the basic color of the dress. (Probably black in this Puritan-ish example.)
6. What is this? It’s like a really long bib.
Oh, and I see I forgot to mark the white part between 1 and 2 covering the neck, which is yet another piece. I’ll call that 1.5.
These are the sorts of challenges that prevent people from becoming full-time authors.
