Greek key designs in fashion

Filed under Miscellenia by on February 21, 2010 at 6:53 am 2 comments

I’m feeling very inspired by Greek key designs. There are dozens of beautiful historical dresses that uses the design:

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Silk dress with velvet Greek key pattern trim, 1855. This was worn by a girl aged about four years.

From The Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London

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Directoire gown worn with red shawl with Greek key border, from Costume Parisien, 1799 at

http://www.tetradequestrian.com

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Romantic era dress from Goddess: The Classical Mode

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1860s dress. Either from the Met or the V&A

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1890s bathing costume from Goddess: The Classical Mode

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And of course, Queen Maud’s 1911 Worth dress

Variants of the design appear in the murals at Pompeii too:

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UPDATE: I will continue to add Greek key fashion images as I find them, so that this post can act as a reference for Greek key fashion images

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Princess Andrew of Greece (?) with her daughters in a Greek Key dress, circa 1908

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An evening dress by Edward Molyneux, late 1920s
http://www.miscellanees.com/m/mode02.htm

Childrens fashions for July 1863

Evening dress, House of Lanvin, 1925. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Evening dress, Mme. Jeanne Paquin, 1905-1907, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Blog awards goods and bads

Filed under by on February 20, 2010 at 8:26 am no comments

Costume Queen gave me the Best Blog award. Yay! Awww….

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Sorry, it didn’t come with a bigger picture, and I traced it back over 7 blogs and couldn’t find one, so you and I will both have to wonder what the little bits say.

The rules for the award are as such:

To accept the award, you must post it on your blog along with the name of the person who has honored you with the award, and include a link to his/her blog. Then you must choose 15 other blogs that you believe deserve the honor of Best Blog. You must contact each of the bloggers you choose and let them know you have honored them. Include a link to your post, along with the rules, so they will know what to do.

The good of blog awards is that you know people out there are reading and enjoying what you post.

The bad is that you have to pass the blog award on, and it is so hard to pick the right blogs to give it to. There are so many amazing blogs out there! How to choose?!?

After much thought and glaring at my computer screen while I searched for inspiration, I’ve finally chosen 6 blogs to pass the award on to (15 is just too much pressure). My criteria was 1) Non-costuming blogs, to illustrate the diversity of blogs out there, and 2) Blogs that I haven’t given awards to in the past.

1) The Duchess of Devonshire’s Gossip Guide to the 18th Century. When I first found this blog, I was really disappointed in it. It was real history! I love history – but reading it is practically work! I was expecting a blog version of those facebook pages set up for fictional characters. Once I got into the blog, I realised why it is so popular, and now I’m addicted.

2) MaryEllePhotography. This one was easy (even though it is a Mormon mommy blog *gasp*shock*horror*!). First, Mary is the most amazing photographer, and has the cutest kids ever (if they disappear one day it’s because I kidnapped them). Second, Mary’s house is gorgeous. And she named it Pemberley *swoon*. And she calls her DH Mr Darcy. What’s not to love?

3) Tea with the Vintage Baroness. Pretty pictures, gorgeous vintage clothes, fun tidbits of knowledge, all round enviableness

4) A Peacock Bride’s Tale I’m stretching the rules as it is a website/blog, but it is gorgeous, and about all the things I love, and supports great artisans.

5) Music, Corsets, and Star Wars. OK, so kind of costuming, but I’m nominating this blog because she knits full on Star Wars figures, and makes up the patterns herself, and I definitely think that kind of awesome should be celebrated.

6) Royal Portraits. This blog is exactly what it says it is. Royal Portraits. Nothing else. No writing, no comments, no nothings. Which makes it a totally fab resource for costumes, and historians, and interesting images in general. Also totally undemanding to follow.

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And finally, a random pretty picture.

The perils and pitfalls of dyeing

Filed under 20th Century, Costume Diary by on February 19, 2010 at 6:52 pm no comments

The fabric of the Laurel dress is being uncooperative.

First I misplaced a length of the ivory silk charmeuse, and made both Mrs C and Madame Ornata tear apart their fabric stashes in search of it, before finding it exactly where it should have been at my house.

Then I went to cut the black patterned organza, and realised that it warps horribly when you work with it. Mrs C was also having trouble with it – it melted like mad with any sort of ironing because of the nylon.

So we (OK, most me) decided not to use the black patterned organza, and to dye some of the gold cotton net black instead.

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The dyeing went surprisingly well. The colour I achieved was almost black, which is a minor miracle as it is really hard to dye black.

When I say almost, I really mean it looked green under synthetic lights. (remember that scene in Anne of Green Gables where she tries to dye her hair black? Yep. Just like that)

I figured, not to worry though, green-black is historically accurate. Dark blue was specifically introduced as an acceptable colour for dinner jackets because early 20th century black dyes looked green under artificial light.

Unfortunately, while the colour came out right, the fabric shrank, which would have been fine, except that I cut the pattern pieces before I dyed the fabric (dumb me) so then I had to go buy more fabric so that I could re-dye a new, uncut piece, and recut the pieces so that they were the right size.

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Luckily, not only did this method work, but I actually managed to achieve black. Not almost-black, not green-black, but full on, bona-fide, midnight black.

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Midnight black and gold tulle

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This photo shows the green black (on the left), the gold, and the midnight black. The difference is pretty obvious.

So now the overskirt is cut out, sewn together, and delivered to Mrs C for ornamenting.
Whew.

The rest of this dress better go together like a dream!

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Leimomi Oakes is the Dreamstress, a textile historian, seamstress, designer, speaker and museum professional. Leimomi is available for educational and entertaining presentations, textile and fashion advice, special commissions and events. Click to learn more

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