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Greek key shoes – swoon

Published by The Dreamstress

As we all know, I’m really into Greek keys.

My current Greek key  obsession is these evening boots:

Evening boots, 1885-90, Metropolitan Museum of Art

*Swoon*

Evening boots, 1885-90, Metropolitan Museum of Art

I lurve them.  Everything about them.  The red heels.  The invisible side lacing.  The curlicues between the Greek key borders.  The way the Greek keys turn on the toes.  The stripe up the front.  Happiness.

There is a stripe up the back too.  Happiness.

Evening boots, 1885-90, Metropolitan Museum of Art

It’s more of a platonic lurve from afar though.  Like the way you drool over a hot celebrity, but actually don’t want to meet them in person and would just blush and freak out and disappear yourself if they showed up in person and approached you.

I like the idea of the shoes, but really, I couldn’t handle them in person.  It’s just too much shoe for me.

 

A 1760s/70s man’s ensemble – again

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve been planning on making an 18th century man’s ensemble to go with the Lady Anne Darcy dress for ages.

I started one almost two years ago, but it got set aside in favour of other projects.

The Grandeur & Frivolity talk was the perfect excuse to pull it out again and finish it, but things didn’t go that easily.

First of all, the jacket didn’t look that grand when I fished it out of the bag that it was crumpled in and ironed it:

Not that grand. OK, showing it on Isabelle doesn't help.

Clearly some taking it apart and re-shaping and interfacing is in order.

That was do-able.

Making sleeves out of thin air wasn’t though.  And I mean ‘thin air’ literally.  I can’t find the extra fabric from this jacket anywhere.

And then the waistcoat didn’t fit Daniil, the model for the talk.  And I hated the squidgy synthetic fabric it was made out of.

So basically, all of the stuff that I started with got stuffed back in the bag it came from, and I restarted.

I’m using this suit from Tiden’s Toj as my main inspiration piece:

Man's suit, Tidens Toj

My reasons for this are simple:

  1. I have enough sky blue duchesse silk satin to make a jacket, but not enough to make matching breeches and waistcoat, so the coloured jacket/white waistcoat and breeches works well.
  2. Minimal embroidery means that if I do a good enough job on the jacket, I can contemplate embroidering it myself without being completely overwhelmed by the task.

I’ll be making a few changes to the outfit.  I’m going to do a double-button front to the breeches, and tweak a few other things to make the date a little earlier than the Tidens Toj outfit.  The jacket I already started is definitely 1780s, and having an earlier example will make my mens wardrobe more flexible.  It will be subtle, and only myself and other historical freaks will notice, but it will make me happy.

So look out for more blog posts about this in the coming days!

 

Rate the dress: Fritz Lieber Sr as Ceasar

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week most of you loved our heavily accessorised Regency beauty.  You rated her an 8.4 out of 10.  While I loved the overall painting, I have to agree with Stella: the accessories made the ensemble, and without them the dress would have been lucky to get a 2 out of 10.

I wanted to do something really different and exciting for Rate the Dress today, and I though “ooooh….ancient costume!  Greek or Roman or something”.  And then I remembered the whole “there aren’t any extent ancient costumes” issue.  Blast. Blah.  Icky ick.

So I present the next best thing: 20th century costume designers do ancient costume.  Or, more specifically, Fritz Leiber Sr as Ceasar from the now lost 1917 Cleopatra, opposite Theda Bara.

I was going to show you Theda’s costume, but that seemed too easy.  We’ve seen variants of 1910’s and 20s sexy exotic before.  So manly warrior-emperor it is.

Fritz Lieber Sr as Ceasar challenges Bara's Cleopatra

Ceasar seizes Cleopatra

Ceasar and Cleopatra share an awkward moment

Lieber’s Ceasar has it all: Greek wave patterned boots, an elaborate tunic, wristbands, a Babylonian gryphon across his chest, swooping cloak, and a laurel wreath on his brow.

Did the costume designers err in taking every classical reference ever and mashing it on to one costume?  Or is the blatant and elaborate imagery necessary in a black and white film?  Aesthetically, how does the costume compare?

Rate the dress on a scale of 1 to 10