All posts filed under: 19th Century

Rate the Dress: Doucet’s striking stripes

Based on the lack of rating, most of you were rather meh about last week’s Dance Off frocks (or meh about the idea), though the reaction from those who did rate them was reasonably positive. Those of you who didn’t like the second dress disliked it’s sleeves, and those of you who did like it, felt that the woman wearing it ‘owned it’. The first lady fared the tiniest bit better, just beating out her rival with a score of 7.4 out of 10 vs 7 out of 10 for the second. In honour of the HSF Black & White theme, this week’s Rate the Dress is black and white (in fact, it’s one that I featured as inspiration for the challenge). This Doucet evening gown features bold, graphic black and white (well, ivory) stripes. One stripe pattern forms chevrons on the skirt, while another accentuates the curves of the bodice. The face is framed with a wide collar in a balanced stripe. The Mint Museum chose to pair the gown with black lace gloves, …

Hoopskirts in the Park

Published by The Dreamstress

Our first photo location for last week’s hoopskirt photoshoot with Theresa was a big park on the edge of the green belt in Wellington – the same park I used for the pet-en-l’aire photoshoot. I’ve long thought that the park, with it’s long, sloping green lawn interspersed with pohutakawa and eucalyptus trees, had distinct English pastoral possibilities. If Capability Brown had had access to pohutakawa he would have planted in them. They are the perfect representation of 19th century New Zealand’s complicated relationship with identity. For 11 months of the year they are elegant faux English oak trees, and then for one month of the year they break out in flaming red SOUTH PACIFIC WONDERLAND! colours. This is pretty much how New Zealand was for a good century: torn between being more English than the English, immensely proud of not being English and their new national culture, and not sure what to do with the Polynesian culture they were living side by side with. In any case, the pohutakawa lawn was perfect for a hoopskirt …

A hoopskirt photoshoot – a few of my favourite shots

Published by The Dreamstress

Every time my friend Theresa visits Wellington we dress up and do a photoshoot together. She was in town this weekend, and one of the top things on her to-do wish-list was to take photos with me. I know that one of her lifelong dreams has been to wear a hoopskirt, and I’ve never actually worn my Greek Key ensemble, so massive crinolines was the theme for the day. I wore my new engageantes and 1860s bonnet, and put Theresa in the 1850s Raspberry swirl dress, which she fit beautifully. We went first to the park where Madame O & I photographed the pet-en-l’aire ensemble, and then to the Massey Memorial, which is a much better photoshoot location at sunset than it is at high noon! Here are a few of my favourite images from the shoot: I particularly love these two because Theresa and I each took almost precisely the same image of each other: The light was just amazing as the sun set. Sadly, we didn’t have an artsy fashion student to photograph …