3 posts tagged “costume.research”
Hey kids. In an effort to not be so damned gloomy and pissy all the time, I've turned back to crafting things. Because I'm less likely to throttle someone if my hands are busy. So! Yes. Still planning 15th century goodness, both for myself and for my trade project. Which reminds me, I need to get on sketching hers out. Hrm.
ANYWAY, those are being back-burnered for a bit because two dear friends of mine are getting married in June and I just got the invitation in the mail yesterday. And, the bride being the fashionista she is is having a vintage-themed outdoor garden wedding with brown and blue as her colors.
I always did like that girl's style.
Now, the invitation blatantly states that guests are not required to participate in the vintage-them nor in the color scheme. However, give me a chance to wear different costumes than my everyday one, and I'll most likely take it. If I could figure out a way to dress as a classy sort of pirate done up in light blues and tans, I'd be all over that shit like white on rice. But, as it stands, I've been pouring over images of different vintage eras trying to decide which silouette I like best and which would take an apple-hourglassy figure and make it not look like a sack of potatoes. Without requiring I wear complicated underpinnings, because I'm not going for complete historical accuracy with this project. Also, because if I'm gonna wear complicated underpinnings, I'm gonna go whole-hog and just show up in some Victorian inspired Gothy nonsense and I think the bride might brain me with her bouquet were I to show up in a some corseted nonsense.
Now, nothing's finalized, but I think I'd either go with The Teens, The 40s, or The 50's. Reasons are as follows:
- Mainly because I think the 20s would look horrible on me, no matter how much I adore it. Even with a girdle, my body + dropped waist = fugly.
- I'm still undecided on the 30s as I adore bias-cut things because the of the drapery and flow, but am still looking for examples of something I could wear without having to do a girdle underneath. I have done girdles for much of my life prior to when I went off to college, kids. As a fat girl with Southern and Baptist roots and family, it was a neccesity and a rite of passage. One I always LOATHED. And I hope to NEVER have to wear something that requires one again. I would go on an extreme diet and exercise regiment first to lose all semblance of fat from my person, and I like to think I'm fat-positive. Yes, it is that serious. Which, is funny considering how much I like (properly fitted) corsets.
- I really want to see if I could make something reminiscent of A 1910 Tea Gown or A Mourning Dress from the Later Teens (scroll down to almost the bottom of the page for that second Mourning Dress link) without driving myself nuts. Also, I think that style would flatter my shape pretty well, but I could be wrong. And if I did up a mourning dress replica or inspired something, it would surprisingly not be black, because wearing a mourning dress to a wedding that's not a Gothy one is just. Something. Special. Too special even for me, I'm afraid to say.
- If I make said Tea Gown or Mourning Dress, I think I could get away girdle-free, as the waists are high enough and belted with wide sashes to actually work with my figure.
- I already have an early 40s copper crepe-back satin dress that actually fits my boobs. Just not everything else since the stress/illness weight has packed on. Folks? I look fucking FABULOUS in this dress. (Which I apparently have no pictures of, wtf?) Even when I would clearly need the dreaded G-word to make it fit right at the waist, the color still looks wonderful with my complexion and the cut makes my legs look hot. Since the doctors and I are working to get my body properly functioning again, my metabolism might actually. You know. WORK again, and I might fit into it by June. We'll see. I would try to let it out some, but it is a vintage dress and I am not badass enough to alter vintage anything without messing it up.
- Also, because if i went 50s, I've already got some lovely blue ombre-dyed and embrodered linen/cotton blend fabric (around somewhere) and a sundress mockup (around. somewhere. else.) that could be redrafted for more of a swing look. Which, full skirt + being mostly top-heavy = balanced and fabulous. I might see about rasing the waist or futzing with other design elements to make it work without looking stupid. Because, even though I look good in empire waisted dresses, empire waist + full skirt = weird-looking. Yes, I have tried making something like that. It was a riff on Regency. Updated. No, it shall never see the light of day. It got cannabalized into a circle skirt I wear quite often in the summer and the bodice went. Somewhere. Probably scraps.
- Or, maybe I'll just say hang it all and go ala Marlene Dietrich, because pants and I are friends moreso than dresses, anyway.
- And is always the question in these cases, what do I do about shoes? Different Vintage eras mean different shoes choices.
I don't know. Thoughts? Please talk to me about this, because I always think better when folks talk it out with me.
This is all just me thinking aloud. Carry on.
[same post as a few days ago, just reposting as it got completely jacked up in the feeds]
So, research on historical costumes. From "One World of Fashion," a book far too large for my flatbed scanner and I didn't feel like piecing together images, so the digital camera and balancing precariously on a stool over a high table wins again. For my own record keeping. Blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.
A plate of Demotte's "La Tapisserie Gothique" taken from "One World of Fashion," p. 95.
Late Gothic/Early Renaissance Italian costume. I want the dress smack dab in the middle with the black skirt and the bell sleeves. Also, the. Is that a turban? Bah, I need more source images!
The text from the opposite descriptive page (94) reads as follows:
The Elegants of the 15th Century
Contemporaneous records of the earlier centuries of the costume history in Europe are scanty -- rare illuminated manuscripts; stained glass; the royal seals and the carven facades of cathedrals, and fragments of fabrics in the treasure rooms of religious institutions. But, the finest of all records are the early Gothic tapestries of Flanders and France. The material for this plate was taken from Demotte's "La Tapisserie Gothique," one of the most carefully prepared of art histories from the early Renaissance.
This plate deals with the great 15th Century. By that time, the Italian cities of Genoa, Florence and Venice had not only developed a trade with the Near East, but had organized their own industries of fashion and had acquired, to some degree, the arts and skills of Asia Minor and Syria. Wealth had increased in Europe, and the influence of the Crusades had reached its zenith. The courts of Flanders, France, and even of England, were centers of trade and luxury, wealth, and elegance.
"La Tapisserie Gothique" is one of the great treasure houses of design, both for fabric and for costume, including millinery. It is a wise designer who turns, from time to time, back to original sources.
This is one of the few pages from this book that *wasn't* ripe with going on and on about noble savages and primatives and The Orient. It's a great book for plates of different periods and world cultures, but I have to keep reminding myself it was first published in 1946 and by a dead white guy with all the stereotyping that description entails. It was a lot of skim the words and just look at the pretty pictures.
p. 93 from "One World of Fashion." More silouettes that struck my fancy. Mainly the ones on the upper right and the upper center. Drapery turns my crank, what can I say?
Fashion Sketches in Brass, 13th to 16th Century
One of the most accurate records of the costmes in England between the 13th and 16th Centuries is to be found among the life-size brass etchings which were places above the tombs of the nobility during these centuries. Here we find the draped costume of the 13th Century, and the knight in link armor, the beginning of plate armor in the early 15th Century, the influence that this had on both men's and women's costumes and the time of Queen Elizabeth, when trade with the Orient was beginning to affect the styles of England.
These are actual contemporaneous fashion drawings of these interesting centuries. Few of the original costumes remain, and, if it were not for the four thousand such etchings, scattered all over England, we would have no clear understanding of what the costumes had been in these periods.
These early brasses were once called "cullen plate" because the brass was imported from Cologne on the Rhine. In the latter part of the 16th Century brass foundries were set up in England to supply this demand.
Once again my love of drapery acts up, as does my love of the sculpture at Chartres. Really, I'm kinda in love with Chartres as a whole, if it's possible to love a building, but that's neither here nor there. I really liked how this book pulled off several comparison pieces similiar to this one. (91)
Chartres Cathedral Inspires Costume Design
Chartres Cathedral, finished in the year 1260, is not only one of the world's greatest achievements in architecture but its richly sculptured ornament is still an inspiration to the costume designer.
Chartres was completed in the century of Marco Polo, the traveler, and Genghis Khan, the great Mongol ruler, who protected the caravan routes of central Asia from China to the Mediterranean, and brought the products of China and India and of the Mongols in abundance to Europe.
China and India, in their statues of Buddha, illustrate the gracious arts of draping. But, the Mongol horsement contributed a suggestion of tailoring, and also the use of quilted fabrics in which silk floss was used for padding. The combination of these arts is reflected in the carving on Chartres.
Modern designers still find inspiration in this material.
unknown page of "One World of Fashion," because I lost my notes on this. Photographed mainly for the woman in the lower left corner. I'm not terribly fond of most french silouettes, but that one grabbed me.
I'm not transcribing this one, as I wasn't really using it for research as I'm not really into this period or area but included in my my photo taking for the sake of totality. You can read up on it should you choose, though. And other shots of the book are up on my flickr account.
Now! This whole post really was for that first image. The 15th century Italian lady in the middle of that fashion plate? With the Turban? Yes, her. I want her dress. And headwear. With a very real and visceral longing. Were I to see this lady walking down the street, I would beat her down, snatch her bald and naked and flee into the night with my ill-gotten treasure.
I guess it's good for my as-of-yet non-existent criminal record that I can make one for myself instead.
Now, I need to see if I can find primary source of Demotte's "La Tapisserie Gothique." and of some of the other pieces mentioned in other photos, but mainly Demotte's stuff. I need more source images to figure out construction and fit and fabric issues. Also, the corset vs. no corset debate of this period of Italian fashion that goes back and forth and round and round. For my figure? Corset. Definitely corset. Unless that undergown is ridiculously self-supporting, which it might be. Thus, more research is needed. Such a hardship.
