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COMMENTARY

road trip! (i’m serious this time) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (in LA) just opened what sounds like a really cool exhibition — Fifty Designers/Fifty Costumes: Concept to Character — which runs until 12/5/04. They’ll be showing both the original designs and then the completed costumes for films including Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, Big Fish, Frida, plus many others. Notice they’re also selling an exhibition catalog on site and online.

Guess I’m going to have to head for LA for this and a little fabric shopping!

Life has been INCREDIBLY hectic lately but I’ve marked out Saturday for sewing — so there will finally be updates on my 1875 afternoon dress!

SITE UPDATES

housekeeping I’ve updated my costume galleries — 20th c. creations now includes better pictures of my 1923 dress that I wore to Gatsby, as well as pics and commentary on my husbands knickers. Victorian creations has a pic of the 1890s cancan outfit I put together for a recent ball, including the stripey circle skirt I made for the occasion. Finally, I’ve accepted fate and put my 1560s Nuremberg dress into on-hold status, so I made a new gallery for any pre-1700 creations.

Now that Gatsby is over and I am freeeeeeeeee from sewing commitments (okay, I really need to make some pj’s for my friend Francis, which I’ve been promising to do for a year) I’m all aflutter thinking about what to do next… but more on that later! Back to organizing the sewing stuff!

COMMENTARY

le gatsby! Let us all pause to reflect on just how cute your resident seamstress can be in a damn good hat; let us NOT reflect, however, on whether 1920s dress silhouettes particularly suit her. Let us also reflect on cute husbands who attend their very first (gasp!) costume event, wearing knickers made by your resident seamstress.

Only two meltdown temper tantrums later, I made it to Gatsby! I coordinated the GBACG group picnic — who KNEW there was so much work involved? The main headache was trying to get info out of people, since it wasn’t like I could just make people buy tickets and have that be the end of it. After all the pre-stress, plus leaving my house at 9:30 am to make the early set up time, I drank a lot of cocktails and had a good time getting loud and obnoxious with other loud and obnoxious types.

I did an absolutely ABYSMAL job at photographing all the good costumes — most of my photos are of me and my group. There’s just so much going on and so many people that it’s impossible to really get everyone, plus my husband was in possession of the camera most of time. My favorite (undocumented) was two women in beautiful coordinating late 1920s outfits — one had a light green dress with rose hat and accents, the other had a rose dress with light green accents. Shoulda won the “couple” category in the costume contest, but we won’t go there.

COMMENTARY

for you austen geeks (like me!) Since we’ve been chatting up a storm about Austen… I’ve added a review of the 1940 version of Pride & Prejudice to my Victorian costume movie reviews page. If you’re interested in this upcoming Pride & Prejudice adaptation, Austenblog.com is tracking its progress — see here for articles related to the 2005 adaptation.

Austenblog.com also picked up this article about a budding costume expert — where do we sign her up? (Note on the link: the display is weird, but read the center column, “Jessica’s Master Stroke”).

Finally, just noticed that the 1980 BBC version of Pride & Prejudice just came out on DVD in the US (same with Persuasion [1971], Emma [1972], Mansfield Park [1983], and Sense & Sensibility [1986]). Of these versions, I’ve already seen Mansfield Park and I’ve gotten recommendations for P&P; which others should I see?

COMMENTARY

is it just me? I’d almost be heartened by the addition of some great actors to the upcoming Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice (full cast list here), except that I just came across these photos from the filming. They seem to be going for a long-waisted 1790s look, which is okay given that Austen started writing First Impressions then, but what’s with the very dowdy looking gowns, and what is UP with Knightley’s hair?