Month: November 2013

Rate the Dress: Felipe I, Duke of Parma circa 1760

Last week I showed you a striped 1820s dress with a variety of different trim ideas across the dress, and contrasting sleeves. As a whole, certain bits of the dress you loved, other bits you hated: problem was there was no consensus as to which bits to admire and which bits to condemn! Some of you loved the purple sleeves, others loathed them. I was among those who adored the bias striped trim at the hem, but many of you found it awful. It was a very bitsy dress, and the bitsy votes came together at 7.4 out of 10, which impressed me considering all the criticism. Many of you were also quite critical of the display, which I think is a bit harsh. They are auction-house pictures after all. It’s very generous of Augusta Auctions to make so many detailed photos available online in the first place, and they have a lot of stuff to photograph and dress: you can hardly hold them to the same standards as the Metropolitan Museum of Art! This …

HSF Challenge #24: Re-do: Pamela & Lynne’s 1905 Greek Key dress

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m doing something a bit mad for the Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #24, in which you re-do one of the earlier challenges. My goal is to re-do ALL the challenges. I know! Ambitious! OK, I’m not making 23 separate items, but my goal is to make/finish a collection of items which together would qualify for every single one of the challenges so far. To start with, here is the 1905 Greek Key Reception Dress, which covers 10 of the 23 challenges: There is a wonderful story behind this dress. The dress proper isn’t actually my work: it was patterned up by the wonderful Lynne (who frequently comments on my blog, and who gave me the fabulous fir sleeve for the Fur & Scales muff), and sewn by her equally wonderful friend Pamela for a production of the Importance of Being Ernest some years ago. Being Lynne, she did a beautifully researched garment that was equally beautifully made – far more so than any theatre could hope for! The gown is a perfectly patterned version of …

Frances and Gertie and the Barbras (and a petticoat slip)

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve found some fabulous and rather random things at op shops and other stores lately. First, meet Frances: Obviously she’s not going to be called by her full name most of the time 😉 I’m very excited about having something to photograph tap pants and trousers on properly, and she’s almost exactly my size, which is an added bonus. She was sitting in the window of an op shop that I drive past on an almost daily basis, along with two identical companions, and after three days I decided that I really needed her, though having a bottom just sitting around my bedroom is a bit odd! The next finds are on a theme. Some of my sewing students told me that a completely random store had got ahold of a whole selection of dead-stock 1960s undergarments from a factory clear out. Finding them involved going out to my least favourite part of the greater Wellington area, but I persevered and got: A side-zip body girdle: And a soft bullet-bra: I love how low these …