All posts tagged: 17th century

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 …

Terminology: What is alamode or allamode fabric?

Published by The Dreamstress

While a la mode may mean ‘in the fashion’ it was also once the name for a fabric. In the 17th, 18th & 19th century alamode was a thin plain tabby weave lustred silk, usually black. It was used mainly for mourning, and for the linings of expensive garments, as well as as the outer fabric, especially for outerwear such as hoods and mantuas. A 1691 theft included “”two blacke allamode hoods worth 5s”. Eighty years later, in 1770 Mary Berridge’s London house was broken into, and one of the items stolen was “One Black Allamode Clock Lined in the Blue Latestring” In early histories of 18th century fabrics it is described as being like lustring or surah silk, but more loosely woven (which may be a very non-technical way of saying that it is a plain tabby weave, rather than a twill like surah), and some references even describe it as the same fabric as lustring, but period advertisements make that very unlikely. While usually spelled allamode or alamode, the vagaries of 17th …

Rate the Dress: Elizabeth of Bohemia pre-bohemia

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week there was no Rate the Dress, as I rated the Oscars instead. I hope you enjoyed that, and thank you for your patience. The week before last I presented a very deco 1920s frock, and quite a few of you were vocally NOT IN FAVOUR of it. The poor thing got compared to a kindergarten uniform, a girl scout uniform, maternity dress, Nancy Drew (and you didn’t think that was a good thing), air hostess on a 1970s children’s show, or just the airplane the air hostess would be in. Maybe overwhelmed by the dislike, many of you quietly gave it rather high ratings, but it wasn’t enough to keep the much-maligned frock from a sad 4.8 out of 10. This week, let’s go back a few centuries, and look at an always contentious ‘child in an adult frock’ Rate the Dress. For a 17th century royal, Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Anne of Denmark and James I of Scotland and England, had a lucky life. She had a idyllic childhood. She wasn’t married …