Bluebells

This dress is oozing sobriety but has a vibrant blue color . It dates from the (early) forties and is extremely short (even)for that period. Although hemlines did shoot up after the beginning of the second World War(partly due to fabric being rationed)I first thought this dress must have been made shorter later in its life. But when I examined the hemline it even looked as if it had been made longer. Maybe it was made shorter and than a bit longer again or this dress might have belonged to a more plump teenage girl. The fact of it being so short makes it much more appealing to me, together with the wonderful color, it ads a bit of fun to an otherwise plain dress. I’m wearing it with ankle socks to make the look complete.


The sleeve has darts, instead of the more common pleats, to fit around the shoulder-pads.

The inside of the dress has gauze lining, that could be removed and washed or replaced.



This is a picture from a woman’s magazine from 1940 reminded me of this dress because it has the same kind of simplicity.

Stripes!

Stripes appear to be omnipresent this year. Especially the horizontal blue ones are to be found in every high street shop. It is most unfortunate that this happens to be the most unflattering an boring variant of the stripe. And that while this most simple of prints has such potential.With a bit of creativity and more importantly a bit more effort the stripes can be transformed into most interesting designs. Some clever cutting and pleating and the most surprising creations appear. This is of course not the most profitable way of making clothes apart from the extra amount of time it will cost produce there are also the costs of extra fabric when the fabric it cut on the ‘bias’.The dress I'm wearing is one of my favorite 50’s summer dresses. It looks simple enough, with blue horizontal stripes, but the pleated detail is quite brilliant.
The red striped dress I bought at a highstreet shop last year, I fell in love with the creative use of the fabric. It reminded me of some designs I had seen in old magazines.





The drawings are from a 1939 womans magazine and show a variety of ways striped fabric can be used.





Striped jackets are everywhere.
But the thing that sets this striped jacket by Givenchy, the probable source of the trend,apart from cheap copy’s is the detail on the collar where the stripes a making an ‘angle’, giving it the right edge.

A short introduction:

I’m an Art History student passionately dedicated to my wardrobe. I prefer to wear dresses over anything else, especially pretty vintage ones from about the 1910’s to the early 60’s. In the Netherlands severe underdressing is the norm, so I tend to be overdressed on almost every occasion.

Next to my interest for the actual dressing I’m also fascinated by clothing as an object of art and history. There is some much you can tell about a piece of clothing by looking at the cut, hemline, materials, seems and closings. The inside of many dresses is sometimes just as interesting as the outside. It can explain why a certain cocktail dress may smell of lavender or if a dress has been made shorter bigger or smaller.

In this blog I will write about my dresses (I collect them) and things related to vintage fashion like books, museum exhibitions, and the way contemporary fashion is looking back at past styles.