Brown Fabric Samples 1800-1960 / Aimee's Victorian Armoire

The best way to see the change in fashion, tone, and patterns over the past two centuries is often through looking at the fabric. Black and white photographs can only help so much, so having the ability to see color fabric samples is a huge help to my sewing. This is also true when I go shopping in modern fabric stores. Being able to have a go-to guide on patterns, prints, and colors makes the search much easier!

Stemming off of this month’s color inspiration of brown, I wanted to share a few pages from one of my fabric dating books by Eileen Jahnke Trestain. This encyclopedia of fabric samples gives overviews and colored pictures in a variety of tones from 1800-1960.

Enjoy!