More Becoming Jane

Since we had so much fun a few posts ago! Here are some pics from the filming of a ball scence from Becoming Jane. Thanks to Austen Blog (which I love!) for the links.

1) Obviously we are going for the late 18th century thang of young people in high waists (1795+) and older people in older styles (1780-95). Jane’s romance with Tom Lefroy happened in 1795-96, so that makes sense. But why is Anne Hathaway wearing a very 1810s/20s style dress then? And why is the younger blond chippie in the last photos wearing the 1780-95ish style?

2) Okay, Anne’s dress is really pretty. Green! And so are the other dresses.

Costume in Cinema

I’ve just added two new movie reviews: The Lady and the Duke, and Tristram Shandy, on the 18th c. movies page. Can you tell I have the 18th century on the brain?

In other news, my life is totally slammed this month so don’t expect to see much in the way of sewing, sadly. I’ll try to keep things lively around here, but I can’t promise anything.

Costume College Classes (Mine)

Just got my list of what I’ll be teaching at Costume College. Three overviews of women’s costume: 1830s, late 16th c. venice, and 1750-1780. Yay! Should be fun. The 1830s one I’ve done twice before, so that’s easy. Just did the 18th c. one at Costume Academy; I’ll make some tweaks to that. And the Venice one should be fun as I’ve done way too much research on that, plus it hasn’t been done before at CC to my knowledge.

Now here’s a random question for you Costume College attendees: do you like it better when the instructor wears a costume from the period, so you can see what it looks like on and (hopefully) get inspired? Or would you prefer to have the costume on a hanger/mannequin, so you can look at the construction?

And I guess this helps me determine which costumes I’m hauling to Costume College this year! Although I still need something new and fabulous for the gala… Hmm. I was considering making this 1910 evening dress, but now I have the 18th c. bug! I could wear my caraco and petticoat but I don’t think that will be very showy, or my 1875 evening gown which is very showy, but I wore the day version last year (so maybe it won’t seem very exciting to sort-of wear again. Although it is really cute, imho). Hmm! What do you think?