All posts filed under: 20th Century

Rate the dress: Yves Saint Laurent, 1958

Published by The Dreamstress

Some of you loved last week’s pink and cream 1822 dress, some of you thought it was a sad rag in dull, insipid colours and fabrics that reminded you of Grandma’s net curtains.  It rated a 7.5 out of 10 The dress I present this week carries on some of the same themes (soft net trim and monochromatic colour schemes), but differs wildly in other areas. Yves Saint Laurent designed this dress for Christian Dior’s Spring/Summer 1958, and the fashion forward Duchess of Windsor purchased it for herself. At 62 years of age, did Wallis Simpson finally make a fashion mistake?  Or was her taste as unerring as ever? Rate the Dress on a scale of 1 to 10

A different kind of robe a la francaise

Published by The Dreamstress

In addition to all the recreation dresses that were in last Saturday’s talk, I used some real vintage garments as well. I own this beautiful early 1930s rayon robe, made in Japan for the Western market. The theme of Saturday’s talk was The Eastern influence on Western fashion, with a focus on Japonisme and Chinoiserie, so what could be better than a kimono inspired robe made in Japan for the Western market? Madame O has a beautiful 1940s peach pink negligee that paired perfectly with the robe (and being the darling that she is, of course she was willing to let me use it for the talk). The only thing we needed was a model. I got asked to do Saturday’s talk at the last minute, and coordinating models was touch and go the whole time. Enter Mrs C and Hortense (you have to say her name in the most glamorous French accent possible). Hortense is a French exchange student who came to Saturday’s conference with her host.  Mrs C found her, pounced on her, …