Author: kendra

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Random Musings

Last weekend I went to the Oakland Museum’s White Elephant sale where I only bought a pearl necklace and a 40’s style olive green suit ($10)… only to get home and on a hunch, start poking around and realize that my 40’s style suit is actually a vintage Women’s Army Corps uniform (minus all its buttons). Yay! So now I’m wandering around ebay trying to find buttons and all the other insignia that it’s missing.

And I’m teaching two classes this weekend at GBACCG’s Costume Academy — one is an overview of 18th century costume, the other is on draping the 18th c. bodice. In doing so, I came across the sketch Nancy Bradfield includes in Costume in Detail of 1780s bum rolls/pads. That’s the only evidence I’ve seen for these, and since I love the 1780s, I thought I’d just go see if I could find the original she redrew that from… behold! I’ve ordered the catalog on ILL so I can see a better version. Anyone know of any other documentation for bum rolls in the late 1780s?

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Going Beyond the Academy Awards

The following are the winners of the Costume Designers Guild awards:

Excellence in Contemporary Film: Transamerica (Danny Glicker)
Excellence in Period Film: Memoirs of a Geisha (Colleen Atwood)
Excellence in Fantasy Film: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Isis Mussenden)

Outstanding Made for TV Movie/Mini-Series: Elvis (Eduardo Castro)
Outstanding Period/Fantasy TV Series: Rome (April Ferry)

There’s more tv awards — see details at the Costume Designers Guild website.

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Oscar Post-Mortem

Yay for Memoirs of a Geisha winning for best costume design! Cross posted from jenlemus’s LJ: an article/slideshow on why period films always win for costume design.

But, more importantly — fashion report!

Can you guess who wins my best dressed award? Amy Adams — chocolate silk! Stripey ribbon! Red hair! Pockets!

In the “also fab” category: Reese Witherspoon (great color – loved the silver sparky bits, great cut and beautiful sweeping skirt, beautiful hair); Keira Knightley (great hair color, loved the smoky eyes and vintage 1960s Bulgari necklace, her dress was a beautiful color and fit, altho I’m not 100% about the mermaid look); Sandra Bullock (great color on her, beautiful cut & fit plus I love the full skirt, I thought the sheer layer added a nice bit of visual interest); Jessica Alba (very suitable to her); Nicole Kidman (did her usual very pale thing, but this time it worked and she looked elegant); Salma Hayek (gorgeous color, perfect fit, loved the hair); Deborah Rennard (wife of Paul Haggis, in the stunning fiery orange dress); Uma Thurman (lovely pale peach color, gorgeous makeup & hair, dress very flattering to her).

In the “nice but not thrilling” category: Rachel Weisz (beautiful hair, dress very flattering to her pregnant figure but not stunning); Jennifer Lopez (liked the dress cut & color, not sure it worked 100% on her).

In the “boring” category: Jennifer Aniston (basic black, zzzzzzzzz); Hilary Swank (ditto).

In the WTF? category: Michelle Williams (the yellow dress with the red lipstick! aaaaaaaaaa!); Charlize Theron (the bow! the bow!); Felicity Huffman (I’m sorry, I don’t want to see your bony sternum); Naomi Watts (that dress made her look weirdly lumpy, plus the deconstructed foofa bodice looked like she’d just got back from swinging in the jungle with King Kong); Helena Bonham Carter (I adore her, but… the hair! the dress! the WHITE SHOES!).

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GBACG Goes to Gaskells

So this past Saturday GBACG went en masse (well, some of us anyway) to the Gaskell ball (semi-monthly Victorian balls in Oakland). It was really really lovely — there were less of us than last year, but we did a better job hanging out together so I actually got to talk to lots of people. Plus there were lots of lovely people, like Trystan looking stunning in a purple and gold dress, Sarah all the way out from Utah in her Colonial Coquette dress, and Jwlhyfer in her Elizabeth Siddal posing gown. Our group theme was costume in bloom, and everyone did a great job accenting their costumes with flowers.

I didn’t dance much (still recovering from a knee injury) but those that I did dance were great. We were even awake enough that Jwlhyfer, Bridget (in my brown 1830s evening dress) and I met my husband and a friend at a bar in Berkeley afterwards — where we made MANY friends (nothing like drunk frat guys who actually know what a bustle is!).

aaaand… PHOTOS!