The Regency Encyclopedia celebrates its 5th anniversary by announcing several new enhancements to the Fashion Module. These include:

Fashion Glossary: This is the same database of definitions that powers the highlighted words in the fashion prints’ texts. You can now search on these definitions without hunting through the fashion prints.

Research Fashion Palettes: Ever wonder what a color like morone looks like or what garments would be in that color? This database allows you to research the fashion palette colors by year (1800-1829) or by the color itself. A couple of caveats to keep in mind: First, since the color swatches are html codes, your monitor will determine how they display, so at best, these can only be considered approximations. Second, each year’s fashion palette has been compiled from the original fashion print texts and other contemporary fashion articles. If a color shows up in one year and not another, it doesn’t mean the color wasn’t used, it only means that I don’t have any original source documentation for it.

Visit the Modiste Shop to Dress the Doll: Have some fun creating your own regency era outfit. This is the first of an eventual six dolls in the series. Pick the year and the applicable colors for each garment type will load. You can pick any combination of available colors and change them as much as you please before the doll is displayed. When you do, you’ll see the doll in a lovely setting with text incorporating your color choices written in the style of the fashion column in “La Belle Assemblée”.

In addition to these functions, the fashion prints database has been increased to almost 1,700 images thanks to the generous contributions of Vicky Hinshaw of Milwaukee and Jeanne Steen of Chicago.

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There are also two other important changes to the web site. The first you’ll notice when you try to login. Because of the complaints received from newcomers trying to find the login information, we’ve now added a link on the login page to take a new user to a page containing all the websites I know about that have established logins.

The second major change is that the User Guide is now split into module chapters. When you click on the User Guide link on the main menu, you’ll be directed to a new screen showing pdfs for each chapter.

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Many thanks are owed to three people in particular for their efforts in bringing this all about – particularly the Dress the Doll feature as it was something I hoped and wished for from before we opened the website for the first time in 2006. Artists Lindaanne Donohoe and JASNA’s newsletter graphic artist, Kathleen Burke were most creative and patient in working around the programming issues. But the greatest thanks goes to my programmer Victoria of JAFF Index fame, who when faced with issues and bugs that threatened to doom the whole project several times, somehow managed to find a solution. I don’t know how she did it but I’m forever grateful for her efforts.

Happy exploring & thanks for your visiting the website in the last 5 years.

Sue

User ID: MDWriter
Password: Historian
(both are case sensitive)

Congratulations dear Sue on this major achievement, and thank you for the update. You and the girls are doing a magnificent job, I can't stress that enough.



Renée