All posts tagged: fur

Rate the Dress: Velvet & Fur in 1900

Despite a few readers loving last week’s avant garde green and gold Lanvin jumpsuit, most of you didn’t.  It rated a rather dismal 4.9 out of 10, with opinions ranging from Stella’s “Who knew!?!? Harem pants  can  look cool” to comparisons to a trashbag.  Ouch. This week’s rate the dress is brought to you courtesy of the exceptional weather we have been having in Wellington.  It’s been snowing.  Now, this wouldn’t be exciting if I lived in the South Island, but snow in Wellington happens once or twice a century.  And my suburb?  Never!  We live at sea level!  But we have been having hours long snow-storms, and the whole neighborhood has been outside with cameras.  It’s such big news it made the New York Times.  If that wasn’t a hyperlink it would be in bold, italics and underline, all at the same time.  The only one who doesn’t love the weather is Felicity.  Poor kitty is freaked out.  She doesn’t understand this white cold stuff that falls from the sky. Obviously, I need to …

How to Wear the New Furs: Christmas 1911

As winter closes in here in the Southern hemisphere, it seems a good time to show you a fascinating article from the Girl’s Own Paper, Christmas 1911, explaining the styles of furs in that winter: The magazine also presents a selection of charming fur styles: And I thought you might enjoy a close up at our feature model: It’s certainly different from our modern attitude towards fur isn’t it!  And I had no idea that fur colours, and the type of fur, changed in style!

Rate the Dress: Princess Louise Marie in furry finery

I suspected that last week’s Schiaparelli would be unpopular with some, but didn’t anticipate how many of you would consider it a ‘waste of time and material’.  The only love it got was as a potential costume for a Broadway  musical.  It rated a 4.9 out of 10. Perhaps the frock of a Princess (and a nun) can tempt you to higher praise?  Drouais paints  Louise Marie of France in a dress of luxurious tobacco-coloured silk trimmed with wavy bands of fur and lightened by lace sabot sleeves. The style of dress is somewhat old-fashioned for 1770 (Louise Marie’s sister in law, the charming Maria Josepha of Saxony, was painted in similar frocks in the early 1760s), and is rather sombre in tone.  Suitably un-worldy for a princess who was about to become a nun?  Or was Louise Marie, like her sisters, the other aunt-in-laws of Marie Antoinette, another “bitter old hag” who could not be bothered to dress properly?  Or is it technically suitable, but tasteless or ugly?  You decide. Rate the dress on …