All posts filed under: Miscellenia

Dress, ca. 1863, French, silk, Purchase, Judith and Ira Sommer Gift, 1999, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.123a–c

Rate the Dress: Blue Flowers & Big Skirts

Your opinion on last week’s dress very much depended on whether it was seen from the front of the back. This week I present another dress that is quite different depending on the angle you see it from. How will it fare in comparison to last week’s pick? Last Week: a summer 1940 evening dress by Schiaparelli The verdict on last week’s dress was pretty clear for most of you: fabulous back, boring front. A few people disagreed, and thought the dress would have been overdone with a more elaborate front, and was perfection as it was. And a couple of you went looking and found the matching jacket that could be worn over the dress. I’d deliberately left it off, because the dress was clearly designed to be worn with or without the jacket, and I thought it would be interesting to see your reaction to Schiaparelli’s cutting, without the more obvious flourishes of the jacket. The Total: 7.5 out of 10 A slight improvement on last week, but still rather disappointing. This week: an …

Rate the Dress: Scarlet Suit-ed

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week’s Rate the Dress was very Southern California summer: perfect for sunsets on the beach and glam parties in the dawning years of Hollywood. This week’s pick is much more Wellington winter: just what you need for keeping cosy while going to an Edwardian soiree where you want to be sure you’re dressed better than that upstart Annie Beauchamp. Last Week: 1920s dress in complementary velvet hues Orange is having a moment, and that may have helped with the response to last week’s sunset hued number – or perhaps it was just that the luscious velvet was irresistible. When the dress did come in for criticism it was mostly for the belt: the braiding did not age well, and many of you thought it was clunky, heavy, and looked like a last-minute addition. Interestingly, I thought the belt, while it clearly had suffered the effects of age, was what ‘made’ the dress, and the beading was the pointless afterthought! It takes all opinions! The Total: 8.5 out of 10 That may be the best …

Climate Change, Mental Health, Costuming & Me

Published by The Dreamstress

Warning: this post contains triggers. Sometime in late April my brain figured out how bad climate change is going to be. I’ve been aware of climate change for as long as I can remember. I wrote a paper on it for school when I was 15. I got into a massive argument with a professor about it my first term in university and derailed the entire lecture (still not sorry). But I managed to be aware, without grasping how bad it’s going to be. It’s going to be bad. High likelihood of completely dead, un-swimmable oceans bad. Mass extinction bad. Potential death of all humans by 2050 bad. My mind took the realisation…badly. By badly I mean I went from blithely happy to extremely depressed in less than 24 hours, and became so anxious that in one four day stretch I spent more of my awake hours having panic attacks than not. I had so many panic attacks I pulled a muscle in a my chest from hyperventilating. It was not good. I’m seeing a …