All posts filed under: 18th Century

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 …

Putting marmotte hair to shame

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m still plugging away on the Marmotte Masquerade Stays, but have been held up by boring paperwork and car fixing and whatnot. So I’ll keep you entertained with other things. Between my stays and the Fairies & Dinosaurs at Versailles party I’ve been fixated on mad 18th century hair. These fashion plates particularly delight me: ZOMG! Look at that hair! Look at the fruit! The entire bowl of lemons (or apricots?)! The full pineapple perched in front! That one random pear at front! And her fabulously NOSE-y nose. Best of all, do you know what the pointy fruit going up the back of her hair is? I do! I’m relatively certain that it is a cacao fruit. Yep. That’s right. Chocolate hair. I’m not sure what the large round fruit that alternates with it is though. Out-of-scale quince? Perhaps they were going really exotic and they were meant to be breadfruit. It’s like pastoral France meets my parent’s farm! I love it! And what about this one: She’s a little more typically pretty, which …

Fairies! And Dinosaurs! At Versailles!

Published by The Dreamstress

You know those days when you are having brunch with friends and someone says “We should have a fairy party!” No? Well, among my friends group not only does that happen, but then I pipe up with “Yeah! Fairies! And Dinosaurs! At Versailles!” So, because a number of us had big, exciting birthdays, or little, equally exciting, birthdays this year, we had a joint birthday ball with that as a theme. Because of course! I was hoping to get my Marmotte Masquerade stays done for it, but they weren’t ready and I needed to concentrate on party prep, so I just wore the outfit I had been planning with my gilt stays as a backup. C’est la vie. I’ve never gotten proper photos of me in the stays, so while I’m sad that the Masquerade ones weren’t done, I’m excited about pictures of me in the gilt ones, especially since Sarah the Photographer and I managed to pop down to the beach before guests arrived and get in a quick photoshoot (the benefits of a …