Portico Library activities book
You can find many different drawing activities in our Portico Library Activity Book, created by illustrator Camille Smithwick for our 2019 Fancy Pants exhibition, featuring colour wheels, ‘exquisite corpse’ games and historic garments from Ancient Egypt to Medieval England. All of the illustrations in this book originate from the Portico Library’s unique collection and 100% of the profits go to the artist and our charitable programme. Pick up your copy in our online shop!
How high do you wear your hair? Or perhaps you’re a hat person! Either way, have a go at designing your own extravagant up-do in our free activity sheets below. Click on the images below to download and enjoy them at home.
The year 1772 introduced a new style for gentlemen, imported by a number of young men of fashion who had travelled to Italy, and formed an association called ‘The Macaroni Club’, in contradiction to ‘The Beef-steak Club’ of London. Macaronies wore enormous toupees with very large curls at the sides, upon which an exceedingly small hat was worn which was sometimes lifted from the head with the cane, generally very long & decorated with extremely large tassels.
“The ladies decorated their heads much like the gentleman, with a most enormous heap of hair, which was frequently surmounted by plumes of large feathers and bunches of flowers, until the head seemed to over balance the body.”
Though little-known today, 18th-century engraver Joseph Strutt was at one point called the "most important single figure in the investigation of the costume of the past". He introduces his Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England with examples of ancient Egyptian and Greek garments and goes on to illustrate fashionable dress through the centuries.