Come hear me talk about how the Pacific has influenced Western fashion, from 18th century ballgowns made of tapa cloth, to Elvis in an Aloha shirt.
I’ll explore how the exchange of fabrics and fashions impacted both cultures, and the way in which the Pacific is perceived in the wider world.
This talk is given in conjunction with the exhibition Edith and George: in our sea of islands.
Rate the Dress is going big, little, and back to big again, with this blue bell shaped 1850s number.
Not everyone was sold on the shape of the dress, and the teeny-tiny bodice, but the sheer fabulosity of the embroidery carried the day, and (despite one person rating it only 1!) the dress rocked in with a round score of…
The things that a good fichu can hide!
This dress belonged to Virginia Shields Vaden before her marriage to William Vaden in 1858.
It’s a classic example of mid-late 1850s fashion, with its full tiered skirt, wide sleeves, and deep bertha.
The bright colour is a lovely illustration that the wardrobes of unmarried women weren’t confined to muted, pale shades.
The fabrics illustrate textile advances of the mid-19th century. The ribbon borders of the sleeves and berthe, and deep patterned hems of the skirt, were woven on a jacquard loom. The jacquard loom was invented in 1801, but improved throughout the 19th century, and the dense patterning, with elaborate motifs that switch between naturalistic florals and geometric lines, is characteristic of designs made possible by developments in the 1850s.
While the dress is contemporary with the invention of aniline dyes, and the vivid hues were probably inspired by the same fashion, it would have been dyed with the natural dye indigo. A synthetic (aniline) dye that replicated the blues of indigo dye wasn’t invented until the 1890s.
What do you think? Do you like the frock?
A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.
(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it! And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks in advance!)
Cats spend most of their time sleeping, and Felicity the Sewing Cat has definite opinions about sleeping – especially the sleeping hours she shares with us.
If I take a nap, Felicity will join me. It doesn’t matter what else is going on: her favourite person might be here, the back door might be open on the perfect day for sleeping in the garden, the heater might be on… nope. Her job is to sleep with me.
If we have guests she’ll go and visit them in the morning, but even if they are housesitting and we aren’t home, she sleeps in our bed.
The only exception is if one of the big family members is sick, and I move to the guest bed so we can both sleep. Then she comes with me. Because apparently her job is to sleep with me.
Bedtime is rarely 10pm in our house, but Felicity lives in hope. At about 9:45 she gets up from the couch or the rug in front of the heater, and takes up her station in the hall between the lounge and the bedroom. Pass through that hallway, and she’ll try to herd you into the bedroom with encouraging meeps.
She’ll do this for an hour, and then give up at 10:45, and retreat to the bed, where she will glare at us with accusatory and disappointing looks as we come in and get ready.
Bed should be entered via my (very large) bedside table.
Bed should be exited via the foot at Mr D’s side.
If I’m a bad person and pile so much stuff on my table that she can’t hop up on to it and then to the bed she’ll hop on the bed, carefully pick her way on to my bedside table, sit down, stand up, and then go back to the bed.
If I’m a worse person and pick her up and put her on the bed, she’ll immediately walk across the bed, jump off it at the proper exit space, walk around the bed, and get back on via the bedside table.
I know when Mr D has begun to wake up in the morning, because when it happens I can feel Felicity uncurl herself from where she sleeps at my feet, walk up the bed, sit on Mr D’s chest, and start purring.
Her ability to sense his rise into consciousness is pretty uncanny. And pretty adorable. Nothing beats Saturday morning purrs and cuddles in bed with Miss Fiss and Mr D.
It’s the perfect balm for the soul.
