COMMENTARY
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Les Ateliers du Costume
May I work here, please? Pretty please? |
COMMENTARY
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dress conversions
I recently picked up a 1971 issue of the Bulletin of the Costume Institute (Met Museum) on ebay, and there’s a fascinating article on dress conversions. Apparently a number of dresses in the Met’s collection, including the 1690-95 mantua that’s in In Style: Celebrating 50 Years of the Costume Institute and this 1780s robe a l’anglaise were remade at various points in their life, and the museum decided to reconvert them back to as “original” a state as they could. |
The 1780s robe a l’anglaise, for example, was actually originally a 1760 robe a la francaise, later remade around 1785ish, and then again around 1900. They found some really interesting things when they unpicked the dress — for example, when they took apart the c. 1900 bodice, they found a pleat at the bodice side front seams that covered the original (1760s) armhole.
Fascinating reading!
PROJECTS
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1760 robe a la francaise
Wah! Impending rework! The bodice lining is too short! read more about my 1760 robe a la francaise project |
SITE UPDATES
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real regency & victorian clothing
There are a few new additions to the Real Regency & Victorian Clothing directory, including some smashing late-nineteenth century fancy dress costumes. |
COMMENTARY
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subtle
Further thoughts on my last post… I’m wondering if maybe those things like fit and color schemes are precisely the things that are hardest to learn because they are so ingrained. Our ideas of what is attractive is so subconscious — perhaps it’s easier to notice things like “oh, so in the 18th century they often wore two skirts, one of which was open in the front to show the skirt underneath” than something more subtle like “hey, Victorians seem to like color combinations which to my eye clash!” |
I think it’s interesting that not only have our ideas of what is an attractive figure, facial and facial features shape(s), and hair color changed, but so have our associations — in the 19th century, brown hair was considered more attractive than blond because it was more demure, and freckles were bad because only poor people went out in the sun (guess I would have been screwed!). My theory on the modern trend of fake nails is that it is a holdover from similar associations — “I have long nails, which means I don’t do manual labor.” Hmmmmm!