All posts tagged: 1960s

Vintage 1960s Watteau-backed Hawaiian Dress thedreamstress.com04

Watteau in (almost) Paradise: a vintage 1960s dress

I’ve blogged about almost everything I wore to Costume College this year, except one: the one thing that was actually on-theme (1960s), and that I didn’t make. I thought I’d give myself a break from corsets on Sunday, and wear a nice loose, flowing dress. Something that was both 1960s, AND fit the class I was teaching on Sunday: Tapa Cloth & Tiki Attire: the Pacific Influence on Fashion. This was the dress! Ironically, despite choosing it for comfort, this dress was the most least comfortable thing I wore all Costume College. Every commercially made Watteau-backed Hawaiian dress that I find seems to have been cut for someone who was 5’3″. The bust is too high, and the waist is too high. The armholes dig into my underarms and force my shoulders back to a really unnatural angle. This one is no exception. 🙁 If you’re thinking that ‘vintage 1960s Watteau-backed Hawaiian dress’ is a very specific description, it is, but they were a ‘thing’ from the late 60s to the early 70s. I collect …

A confession

Published by The Dreamstress

I have a confession based on last week’s Liz Taylor Rate the Dress. I don’t think Liz Taylor is particularly attractive. And I really don’t think that she did the clothes she wore any favours, particularly the nipped-waist body-conscious frocks they put her in in her heyday. There, it’s said. You can now gasp in horror and question my taste forevermore. Or rush to the comment function to add that you feel the same way and have never been brave enough to say it before! So what’s this about? Well, first I feel that when she was quite young, she was generically pretty, but never interestingly or memorially beautiful. There was always something too round and bland about her face for it to be really striking or notable. And then she aged so quickly. At 17 she looked, 25, and at 25 she looked 35, and by the time she was 30 she looked like she was in her mid 40s. And her face always reminds me of those chicken breasts that the pump water …

The 18th century wedding dress: then, and now

Published by The Dreamstress

The 18th century was the dawn of the modern wedding dress: it saw the first emergence of white dresses as a trend, the first dresses specifically for weddings, and it is the oldest century from which we have a reasonably large selection of extent dresses. The 18th century is also a very popular era among this blog readers, and is a stunning, and unusual (at least at the moment) era to draw dress inspiration from. So let’s look at some 18th century wedding gowns, and some more recent 18th century inspired wedding gowns. First, a complete ensemble with excellent provenance, from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. No, it’s not white. And most modern brides aren’t into bonnets, but it still has so many elements I would instantly steal as a wedding dress designer. That fabulous quilted petticoat… The pinked fabric framing the face and bust… The beautiful sleeve ruffles… Or you could just wear the dress exactly as it is, as it’s already a thing of beauty. Next, another coloured wedding dress. The shape …