All posts filed under: 20th Century

Rate the Dress: Worth Jr plays with gold embroidery

Sometimes I think I should find a way to tally not just the ratings that are given in my ‘Rate the Dresses’, but also the ratings that weren’t given.  After all, if you can’t even be bothered to comment on a garment, that’s a much worse criticism than being moved to pillory it.  Such was the case with Marie Christine last week.  Most of the ratings were quite complimentary, but there were so few that I suspect many of you found it too bland to be of interest.  I’m afraid I agree – the dress/Brunswick was boring, the sleeves awkward and bulky with their double flounces, the headdress and necklace overdone and awkward, but oh, that lace fichu!  And the elegant apron!  And that dear, dear  little spinning wheel!  Perhaps that’s not what you loved, but you gave it an 8.1 out of 10. This week I return to something more likely to prove of universal interest: turn-of-the-century Worth.  In the past you have not always been so complimentary of Worth Jr’s creations.  Perhaps this …

Rate the Dress: Fireworks by Chanel

High marks for the Va-va-voom stripey ’50s number last week!  That is, unless you didn’t like chartreuse, or had misgivings about the bag-pouf on the hip.  Those little niggles dragged the dress down to a still impressive 8.2 out of 10 (though the jury is still out on who would look good in it: Grace Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Marilyn Monroe or Christina Hendricks?  My money’s on Cyd.  Grace is too prim, Marilyn too cliche and Christina too curvy – it would just be too OTT, not to mention obscene, on her figure!) Last week I missed out on posting a Halloween Rate the Dress – no real reason, I simply forgot. To make up for it, I thought I’d post a Guy Fawke’s Rate the Dress this week.  The problem with that is that I’ve already posted James I, his wife  Anne of Denmark  not once but twice, his son and heir Charles I  as a teenager, and his daughter Elizabeth of Bohemia  (who the Gunpowder plot had aimed to replace James with) as a …

Windy Lindy 2012

It’s that time of year again – Windy Lindy, the biggest swing event in Wellington’s dance calendar. Every year I solicit your opinion on costume, and then happily ignore what you tell me and make whatever I feel like (I don’t mean to do this, it just happens !).  And then I deluge you with pictures. Over the years I’ve worn natty nauticals, glamorous ’30s evening gear, and been a human chicken and a pin-up Dorothy Gale. This year’s theme was Blitz Ball, and while I love 40s fashions, I just couldn’t get excited about the theme.  I tried my best, settling on Simplicity 3446 – the 1940 pattern that my Grandmother used for her wedding dress (the pattern still had her alterations!) I paired it with a fantastic vintage brocade in vivid fuchsia which I picked up in Napier at Art Deco weekend last year. Isn’t that a fascinating fabric?  It’s got a secondary weave layer floating over the base layer.  Not a good thing for Felicity to get her claws into, and kind …