Sometimes looks less than adorable and dignified.
And since I am rotten and evil, I photograph it and share it (it’s payback for the occasional arm and ankle embellishments she bestows upon me).
And for the unfortunate incident of the mouse in the lounge….
Remember the Regency photoshoot Theresa and I did back in January? There were so many pretty photos from it that I didn’t manage to show you even half of the good ones, and I was afraid the blog would get rather monotonous if it was just post after post of these photos!
One thing I did really want to show you was our hair, as I think both our hairstyles turned out rather beautifully. I usually go for earlier Regency, quite deshabille, with lots of loose tendrils, with my hair, but Theresa has a secret talent: she’s a master braider.
Actually, it’s not at all a secret talent, because Theresa is so awesome at braiding that she has a braiding business and runs incredibly popular workshops on it in Melbourne.
With a braider par excellence at my disposal, of course I had to go for super braided hair. I’m not a period hair expert at all, so we just stuck to LOTS of plain braids, all wrapped around each other and a bun.
I have super thick, very wavy hair, and at the moment it is waist length, so there was a lot to work with.
We started by dividing the front hair from the back, and separating it with a center part (and I say we, because I advised on historicism as far as I knew, and Theresa did the actual magic). Then we took a small section of the back hair, and formed a bun to build the rest of the hair around.
The rest of the back hair got divided into braids, which wrapped up and around the bun:
The front sections were each braided, swooped back, and wrapped around the bun as well.
Theresa did my hair, and I did hers.
She’s got a bit below shoulder-length, straight, thick hair, with a lot of volume. Unlike mine, it will not sleek down against the head. Because of this, it just looked silly when I tried to center part it and smooth it down. So I went for a less-common-in-period pull-back, which suited her much better.
I bunned the upper hair, divided the lower hair into two braids, and wrapped them up and around the bun.
Gold beads tied back into the dress, and a vintage tortoiseshell comb added a bit of late-Regency asymmetrical height.
If you are interested in the jewellery, Theresa is wearing gold baubles by Things Unseen. They are my favourite earrings, because they look right with every period from ancient Rome to late Victorian! Her bracelet is a beautiful Kashmiri piece given to me by the wonderful Lynne, and the gold beads in her hair were my grandmothers.
My earrings are modern chandelier tat, but my necklace is something quite special. Also from the amazing Lynne, it’s an early Edwardian family piece in silver and black onyx, and shows the Regency influence on Edwardian jewellery, that would later appear in fashion as Directorie revival. I am quite honoured to be the new caretaker for the necklace (there are earrings as well, but they are screw-on, and I was afraid of loosing them in the gardens). And I made the bracelets.
I’m going to admit straight out that I was quite surprised by your response to last weeks 1880s blue & brown bustle dress. I though that you would universally denounce it for well, everything. I thought it had potential in the materials, and potential in the design, but neither quite worked. But many of you liked it…a lot! Not all of you, by any means, but enough of you to bring the rating in at a quite impressive 8 out of 10 – a whole two points higher than I was expecting!
Shows how good I am at predicting your reactions!
I know that I usually stay pre-1960 with Rate the Dress, but sometimes I see something a bit more recent that I just think needs to be featured.
Like this:
What a fascinating take on a swimsuit.
On the one hand, you could look at it and see an elaborate set of diaper-bloomers, with all that gathered fabric. On the other, you could see an interesting take on the way water flows and moved: the fabric will move about the body like water, and create its own dance of movement in the water, like loose hair.
What do you think of what you see?
Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10
