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no contest

Best dressed: Renee Zellweger (the fabric! the color! the fit! the BACK!) followed only semi-closely by Nicole Kidman.

Honorable mentions to: Naomi Watts, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore

Yay for vintage Givenchy, but I think the dress wore her: Samantha Morton

Just didn’t suit her: Sandra Bullock

Way too beige (try lipstick next time!): Charlize Theron

Just not a good idea: Uma Thurman

And yay to ALL of Hollywood for no excessive sternum baring, and yay to Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor for winning Best Costume Design for the Return of the King!

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Cinematic Costumes

The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles is once again showing its annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition. Alas, I can’t go this year, but they have started to put the online edition together — currently the site shows the Oscar nominated costumes, with many others still to come. The big problem with seeing this exhibit online, however, is that you can’t see the BACKS of anything!

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SITE UPDATES

la la boring!

I’ve filed my 1830s day dress away into my Victorian costume gallery, I’ve created individual listings for my 18th century stays and pocket hoops on my 18th century costume gallery page (1760s dress soon to be added as soon as I have final pictures), and I’ve finally decided (after creating, deleting, and then recreating) individual blogs for my 1910s corset and 1875 parasol (which means I lost some of your comments, but I’m on an organizing kick — don’t stop me!).

Also, there are new listings on the Real Women’s Clothing directory. Don’t ask why. Just go look.

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getting organized

I stayed up way past my bedtime last night trying to get all my sewing stuff organized. A friend gave me the idea to get plastic bins for each project that I’m currently working on, then to put all the fabric/patterns/notes/etc. into each bin — easy to pull out and put away, making it easy to work on multiple projects at once (which you know *I* would never do!)

This burst of organizational fever sent me off into other directions too, like my fabric stash. I have all my fabric in a big plastic bin (I know, I know, but at least I drilled holes in the top!) in the closet. I have swatches of all of my fabric taped to a manila folder, but I never bothered to write down the measurements of anything, so I got out the yardstick and wrote down dimensions for all my fabric. I have one bin that I use just for scraps, and can I just say that I’m REALLY REALLY BAD at throwing away scraps? I forced myself to throw away some of the ones that I REALLY won’t use, but I still have all of these weird bits and pieces left over from projects that I worry that I just might want some day!

Now that I’m feeling organized, I’m ready to get started on new projects, but that’s making me think about all the GEAR that I don’t have. I just ordered a bunch of things I need from Clotilde (like replacement rotary cutter blades and marking paper), but now I’m wondering about some of the gear that I don’t have. Has anyone used any of the following, and are they at all useful and/or worth the money?

Perfect Pleaters: seems like a good idea, although I don’t like that the return on the pleats is always 3/8″ — does seem really useful for pintucks etc.

Hem markers: Do they really work, and how close to the floor do they mark (ie can you mark a hem that’s 1″ off the ground)?

Hem pressing thingamabob: useful or superfluous?

Tailor’s ham: I admit it, I don’t have one. Do I need one?

Any other gadgets that you love that I might not know about?