All posts tagged: Wedding dresses

Rate the Wedding Dress

Published by The Dreamstress

UPDATE: Ratings on this dress closed on March 9th. This week’s Rate the Dress is one that has been in my RTD file for a long time, but it’s never been the right one. This week is finally its time. Last Week: 1780s pick ups and pleats  For last week’s 1780s mint green concoction you either adored the colour, or hated it, and either loved the pleats, or found them fussy, and either thought the silhouette was fabulously shepherdess-y, or far too extreme and boxy, and either thought the fly fringe was a fascinating touch, or weird and hairy. Most of you who loved the things loved most of the things, if not all, and very few of you hated everything, leading to a score of… The Total: 8.4 out of 10 A major improvement after last week, but not as good as a lot of other recent picks. This week: 1780s pick ups and pleats  Our Rate the Dress for the week is a 1907 wedding dress featuring a full helping of Edwardian frills, lace, …

Finished projects: the Lonely Heart wedding dress

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve finished the late ’40s wedding dress for Lonely Heart, and the show is on, and the dress is on the actress, and I’m done! The dress however, I’m sorry to tell you, is just a trifle frumpy onstage.  It’s partly because the bodice is so long – it really shortens and widens the body. I’d like to try the dress on a different body type: I think that would help a lot. I also really, really want to try the dress in better fabric.  Extremely polyester tablecloth damask was a brilliant choice for the demands of stage, but it isn’t a flattering fabric, it’s a PAIN to gather, and it was very tricky to work with along the waist shaping and sweetheart neckline.  Being a seamstress is a lot easier when you work with really high quality fabric!  😉 Oh, and Lonely Heart was fantastic – really brilliant music, great costumes by Mrs C, excellent reviews, even Mr D was entertained and impressed.  Hopefully it will have a bigger staging soon!

Unveiling unveiled: how a fashion exhibition travels around the world

Published by The Dreamstress

A few days ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a very special media event at Te Papa in conjunction with Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Dresses. At the event we oversaw the opening of the crate containing the spectacular 1933 Norman Hartnell dress worn by Margaret Whigham, later Duchess of Argyll (yes, that Duchess of Argyll) for her first wedding. The whole media event is part of a wider movement in the museum world to ‘de-mystify’ museums – to allow the public to see a little of what goes on to make exhibitions happen, and to display fragile objects.  It’s a movement I heartily approve of: I feel the more we know about historical objects, the more we will feel connected to them and responsible for their care. I’ve worked in museums, and been intimately involved with the transport of objects and exhibition install, but the wonder of seeing an exquisite, fragile, quite old object travel huge distances and go on display never fails to thrill me.  Every time is a privilege, …