About Bleuette

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

The Auvergne Costume

Auvergne is an historical region in central France, now part of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The mostly rural, mountainous area is popular for hiking and skiing, with forests and dormant volcanoes such as Puy de Dôme. Natural hot springs spawned spa towns such as Vichy, known for its mineral water. Its capitol, Clermont-Ferrand is a busy university city with a Romanesque church, Notre-Dame du Port.

(Google)

Costume pieces: Dress, fichu with fringe, black taffeta apron, bonnet.

LSDS 1931, 26

Thursday, December 28, 2023

LSDS 1923's "Petite Hollandaise"

Bleuette Wears the Costume of A Dutch Girl

The Netherlands has twelve provinces: Drenthe, Gelderland, Groningen, Flevoland, Friesland, Limburg, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Overijssel, Utrecht, Zeeland and Zuid-Holland. North (noord) and south (zuid) Holland are only two of the twelve provinces, but Holland has often been used to denote what is rightly called The Netherlands. People from any of these provinces are called "Dutch."

Traditional dress varies across the twelve provinces, and the costumes changed over time, also.

Bleuette had three patterns for a Dutch girl's costume published in La Semaine de Suzette, one in 1908, Costume Hollandaise, later Petite Hollandaise in 1923, and finally Bleuette en Hollandaise in 1930.

Petite Hollandaise 1923, # 6 & 7

1908 Illustration

1923 Illustration

1930 Illustration

Coifs (white caps) featuring "ears,"pointed tops, flaps, caps with a gathered frill at the bottom, lace bonnets, and many types of decorations distinguish the various provinces. A striped skirt is often part of the costume, but sometimes they are black. Royal blue and orange are the national colors, so some costumes reflect that. One thing the provincial costumes have in common is the "klompen," or wooden shoes.

You could make a lifetime's work of studying the costume variations and traditions of the Netherlands! If you grew up reading "Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates," you might enjoy reconnecting with the Netherlands by making Bleuette the costume of a Dutch girl.

Monday, December 11, 2023

Incassable 301-1 Bleuette

Hello, bon jour! to a new member of my Bleuette family, a 301-1 incassable whose head is made of pressed paper and glue, also called pasteboard. She is 29 cm, and dates from 1939 onward, a wartime Bleuette. She has blue glass eyes on a rocker, though a few from this era have acetate eyes. Those were not continued, but apparently served a purpose at the time.

You can compare her to my Rosette-sized incassable 301 below. The pressed paper heads were a speciality of the SFBJ throughout their manufacturing years (1899 to 1957), and sometimes cost more than a corresponding bisque head. To be able to purchase a doll with an unbreakable head must have been a selling point with parents of rambunctious little girls!

Don't confuse composition with pasteboard, although both are incassable.

Bijou, a 29 cm Bleuette composition-head 301-1&1/2.

Composition is a poured material like porcelain, not pressed like pasteboard.

My incassable "SFBJ Paris" doll.

Another 301 mold incassable of larger size in my collection.

A slightly taller-than-Bleuette 301 incassable cousin.

Marilu, the Argentinian, Bleuette-inspired 16" incassable.

Happy Holidays from "About Bleuette!"

May all your dolls have unbroken heads, if not unbreakable!

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Was this how Bleuette got her name?

I just stumbled across a little historical information which may have had an influence on the name of the little doll being given away to subscribers to the new magazine, La Semaine de Suzette, early in 1905. A French actress known as Bleuette Bernon, was the star of these early French-made films: Cinderella (1899), Joan of Arc (1900), Bluebeard (1901), A Trip to the Moon (1902), The Kingdom of the Fairies (1903), and Imperceptible Transmutations (1904). She would have been very well known to Parisians. Perhaps her films were deemed suitable for the little Catholic girls who would become subscribers to La Semaine de Suzette. Perhaps at Gautier Publishing, they thought the name would be perfect for their little pattern model.

Bleuette Bernon

Bleuette

Monday, October 2, 2023

Welcome to a new Bleuette

Bleuette Unis France 60 8/0 is being welcomed to our family. Her name is Guillerette, because "Perky" was already taken. But her name is an hommage to the original Miss Perky loved by Agnes Sura, and indeed, by many readers of "Bleuette's World."

Like Miss Perky, Guillerette will have to work for a living, modelling all sorts of garments and accessories for her maman's photos. She appears to be up for the challenge!