All posts tagged: 1770s

Baroque & Rococo Out-takes

Last week I was privileged enough to do a photoshoot with Mandi of A La Mode Photography for Radio New Zealand. The photoshoot will be featured on the Radio NZ website to coincide with a programme developed by Clarissa Dunn, who collaborated with me on the Grandeur to Frivolity talk. The day was just fantastic – three gorgeous models, and Clarissa as an (also gorgeous) advisor and model all in my 17th and 18th century outfits, hair and makeup fully done. Mandi took a whole series of formal studio portraits while I madly ironed and laced and did hair while all the models who weren’t in front of the camera helped. She’s posted a sneak-peek of the shoot on her website, and now I’m even more excited about seeing the rest, if that is possible! After the formal studio shots it was time for fun. We ventured out into the streets of Petone, and I captured a series of very un-serious and un-historical, but totally fabulous, images of the models blending modern life and historical …

Rate the Dress: Summer of 1778

Published by The Dreamstress

Despite the possible oddness and uncomfortableness of a boned skirt, and not everyone getting the Japanese influence (it was the best sort of influence – very subtle, most Japanese in that respect, among others!) most of you soundly approved of last week’s green party frock, and it rated a perfect 9 out of 10. You’ve already seen this fashion plate featuring a very summery yellow and lilac frock of 1778 in my post on sabot sleeves, but I thought it deserved a closer look. The fashion plate describes the dress as (roughly – my French is pretty bad) A Circassienne dress in the new style, of gauze in a sulphur colour, with trim in lilac gauze. The flounce trim is in the same colour as the dress, as is the bottom of the sabot. The whole thing trimmed in lilac and purple, even to the headdress What do you think? Do you like yellow and purple, or is the whole thing a bit twee, with all its pastels and ruffles and bows and polonaised skirts? …

Finished project: the very dreadful silver stays

Published by The Dreamstress

Well, for better or worse the silver stays of doom are finally done. They continued their inclination to bad luck through the last few steps. As I was working the eyelets they got sparkling apple juice splashed on them. Luckily it didn’t stain the linen, but liquid is very bad for kid leather, so I think I’m going to have to replace part of the binding at some point. And then, after all the fuss about loosing the shoulder straps and having to cut a new pair, once I got all the eyelets worked and was finally able to try the thing, on the shoulder straps just didn’t work very well. So all that perfect, painstaking hand stitching got unpicked, the back got cut down just a little and I now have strapless stays. Without the shoulder straps tying in pretty bows in front, the front has little visual interest, so I felt the need to lace it with fancy ribbon. Of course, this means I can only unlace it via the back, which means …