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Rate the Dress: 1540s Noblewoman in Green

Last week I showed you an embroidered ensemble said to have belonged to Madame Ã‰lisabeth, sister to Louis XVI. There must be some magic in being a princess, because the full first 10 scores were perfect scores, and the frock managed an incredibly impressive 9.4 out of 10 (which is practically a perfect score these days), though some of you did make it hard for me by giving it multiple scores.

Personally I wanted to love the outfit, but every time I looked at it my eye tried to tweak the motifs and rearrange the embroidery ever so slightly, and if it isn’t perfect as it is, I really can’t give it a perfect score, so it was really only an 8.5 out of 10 from me.

This week we’re downgrading from a well known princess to an unknown noblewoman, with this portrait of a wealthy Florentine woman (presumably a noblewoman) of the 1540s, possibly by Bronzino.

Portrait of a Florentine noblewoman, ca. 1540, possibly by Agnolo di Cosimo (Bronzino), San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego California

Mid-16th century Florentine fashion can be much the same, but this woman has chosen a dress with just enough of a difference to stand out. The deep green shade of her dress is slightly unusual, and lends an air of simplicity and visual relaxation to the elaborate brocaded or cut velvet patterning of the fabric. The vivid grass shade plays off the gold of her jewellery and the white of her linen and lace, and subtly highlights the rosary she holds: emphasising her piety as a desirable trait.

The garment plays with a balance of structure and softness, symmetry and serpentine. The overall shape is quite formal and structured, the delicacy of her partlet is offset by the stiffness of its high, standing collar, which appears to be supported by wires, foreshadowing the late-16th, early 17th century rebato. The partlet sports soft surface tufts and loose, dangling strings (which could presumably be used to tie it closed in front) as a counterpoint to the engineered shape. The tufts of the partlet are echoed in pert little ties ornamenting the sleeve slashings, which lead the eye down to the fine lace of her cuffs, and back up to the white of the partlet that frames her face.

What do you think? Is this different enough to stand out from the mundane ranks of mid-16th century Florentine styles, and attractive in its differences?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

Ruffles to Rebellion thedreamstress.com, images by http::facundo.pixieset.com/

Ruffles to Rebellion: Bringing Mansfield to life in clothes

Published by The Dreamstress

Katherine Mansfield said:

“… but that is the satisfaction of writing – one can impersonate so many people.”

For me costuming is the same satisfaction – I get to pretend to be another life for a little bit, and then return to my own happy nest when I’m tired of trying on a new life. My models tell me that it’s the same thing – historic dress lets you experience another life, another standard of beauty, another way of moving and living.

Two weekends ago 8 models and I got to be Mansfield’s life and stories brought to life for an afternoon at Ruffles to Rebellion: a Katherine Mansfield fashion show. Here are the images (by the fantastic Facundo, who is always looking for new models and events, if you’re in Wellington and looking for a photographer) – complete with quotes from Mansfield’s writings.

It was understood that at eleven o’clock the women and children of the summer colony had the sea to themselves. First the women undressed, pulled on their bathing dresses and covered their heads in hideous caps like sponge bags…

~ At the Bay

~~~~~~~~~

How beautiful she looked, but there was nobody to see, nobody.

~~~~~~~~~

Dark girls, fair girls were patting their hair, tying ribbons again, tucking handkerchiefs down the fronts of their bodices, smoothing marble-white gloves. And because they were all laughing it seemed to Leila that they were all lovely.

~~~~~~~~~

Soon after that people began coming in streams. The band struck up; the hired waiters ran from the house to the marquee. Wherever you looked there were couples strolling, bending to the flowers, greeting, moving on over the lawn.

They were like bright birds that had alighted in the Sheridans’ garden for this one afternoon, on their way to—where? Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who all are happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

“Darling Laura, how well you look!”
“What a becoming hat, child!”
“Laura, you look quite Spanish. I’ve never seen you look so striking.”

~ The Garden Party

~~~~~~~~~

And a funnier thing still was that now her coat was off she did look like a very intelligent monkey—who had even made that yellow silk dress out of scraped banana skins. And her amber ear-rings: they were like little dangling nuts.

~ Bliss

~~~~~~~~~

Then she undid her bodice, and something under that, and something else underneath that. Then there seemed a short, sharp tussle, and grandma flushed faintly. Snip! Snap! She had undone her stays. She breathed a sigh of relief and, sitting on the plush couch, she slowly and carefully pulled off her elastic-sided boots and stood them side by side.

~ The Voyage

~~~~~~~~~

The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone – reading between the lines – has become the secret friend of their author.

The ‘Pants on Fire’ Shorts

Published by The Dreamstress

It’s definitely getting colder here in New Zealand, but I’m still trying to catch up on blogging about my summer sewing.

One of the things I really got excited about sewing was shorts. I made the clamdigger shorts, and then I thought ‘let’s make lots of these!’

Since I was on fire, I made two pairs of ‘pants on fire’ shorts. One with pleats:

And one pair without:

The shirt is also a bit of summer sewing – the simplest, laziest T-shirt I could make, with a turned neck hemming instead of a binding.

Both pairs of shorts have a really ease-y fit, and enormous pockets, so that I can carry around my camera and my phone and a lip gloss and car keys and a few shells or whatever other bits of miscellanea I pick up throughout the day. They have been great for walks and gardening and tramps, and will also get lots of use as on-the-farm shorts in Hawaii.

We took these photos on one of our Sunday evening walks around the coast. I can’t claim it was entirely spontaneous as I brought both pairs. 😉

Mr D quite outdid himself as a photographer and got what may be my favourite photo series ever, as I played with a really cool piece of seaweed I found on the shore.

So why are these the ‘Pants on Fire’ shorts? Not because of photos like these:

But because they are lined in this fabric:

Obviously that fabric isn’t flame patterned, or anything else that would immediately make you think of fire. Nope. Nothing so obvious.

Actually, it’s even more obvious: that fabric has actually been on fire.

About six months ago I walked past an op-shop and noticed that they had a box of fabric scraps outside with a ‘$2 a piece’ sign on the box. I had a rummage, and unearthed a piece of very pretty 1950s embossed floral cotton – the fabric that is now used as the facing for my shorts.

I took the fabric inside, showed it to the salesperson, and set it down on the tiny counter while I pulled out my wallet to pay for it. I was just rummaging for a coin when I noticed a funny smell, and suddenly the woman in line behind me shouted ‘Fire!’

I looked down, and my fabric was indeed ON FIRE.

I hurled it to the floor, stomped on it, and in a few moments we had the fire out.

I turned back to the counter, adrenaline pumping, stammering an apology, trying to figure out how on earth it had managed to catch on fire, and then I realised that on the teeny-tiny counter, the only possible and logical place to put your good while you paid for them, a small scented votive candle was burning.

I looked up at the salesperson, mouth gaping, and she laughed and said “You’re the third person to set something on fire today.”

And then she charged me $2 for the charred fabric.

Not surprisingly, that op-shop closed less than two months later.

There isn’t much you can do with 1/4 of a meter of burnt fabric, but it did make pretty facings for two pairs of shorts!

And every time I wear them I laugh as I put them on.