Variations on a dress

This is an article in a women's magazine (Het Rijk der Vrouw) from 1940. As textile had gotten scarce and was no longer freely avaiable all kind tips on how to keep looking good were given in these magazines. This time it is about the many different ways one simple dress can be worn.



Well this is the simple dress. Given the plaeting and other details it does not even look that simple.



A kind of collar. The text reads "does this not look neat when I have to visit my strict uncle".



With a little (rather unflattering)vest. "But when I receive people myself I prefer this sweet vest. Is my old dress still recognizable?)



A silly hat a lace collar, silk flower and a different belt are added. "On a cosy tea afternoon at my dearest friends everybody was exited about my distinguished little toilet". The text is very,very oldfashioned but in English it does not even sound that archaic.



An outfit for going out (could not read the text on the photo and haven't got the magazine anywhere near). With a coat hat and a piece of fabric for a belt. This outfit is my favorite it is the most glamorous and least silly of them all I think.



A last outfit for colder days. Same coat turned inside-out, how clever :P.

Now I have a simple dark late 30's dress too. And just like the 'model' (aka ordinary woman) in this article I can wear it in very different ways. Coming weeks I plan to post a veriation every week.

Dress for less

A while ago I bought a horrible silk skirt at a flea market for only one euro. I took the skirt apart and used the lovely fabric to make a dress.



I used a 40's pattern I found in a Beyer pattern magazine. The magazine and the pattern are in a very bad state. The pattern dates from WWII so the paper quality is very poor.




The patterns (there are 10 dress patterns on this one leaf) are very crowding a relatively small piece of paper, this is probably due to paper shortages.



The fact that these patterns are from WWII makes them ideal for making dresses out of scraps of material or when there is only just enough fabric to make a dress. Because textile was so scarce none of these patterns require large amounts of fabric and some of them are especially made for little fabric or two different materials.



I loved this pattern with shoulder pieces and big pockets and a six piece skirt. Ideal to experiment with the possiblities chequered fabric. It took a lot of carefull fitting to get the dress out of the small amount of fabric (little overv 2mtr of 88cm broad).




The original skirt was decorated with velvet ribbon. I used the ribon to acentuate the pockets and shoulder insertions.



So for only one euro I've got a dress made out of real silk, pretty amazing, and also a nice chalenge.

Bolero+brah

I would ike to wear underwear as outerwear but I darenot do it, certainly not in Holland. This velvet bolero jacket (from somewhere between the late 30's to the 50's) has a kind of brah at the front. It reminded me of Ariel the mermaids shell-brah. This jacket is hinting towards underwear as outerwear in a very subtle way, a way I dare to wear.





I think it looks best on something simple sleek and bodycon, aka a slip dress(underwear no-one will notice is underwear).





A short slip dress makes a fine cocktail outfit. And a bias cut full length one makes it into an evening 'gown'.





A 'daring outfit'without showing skin and underwear as outerwear without a brah, perfect (though still hugely overdressed) for conservative boring Holland.

Treasure hunting in my parents wardrobe

I sometimes rummage my parent's closets and find wonderfull things they don't wear anymore. In the picture above I'm wearing a smocked blouse my mother once bought with a suit, very nice quality. The pants,(I'm really into wearing pants again lately) are my father's.



This blouse is also my mothers. It a little over the top hence I paired it with a sobre pencil skirt (belonged to a suit).


With this outfit I cheated a little the red top is my own (but my mother did give it to me). The silk blouse is my mothers and the pants are my fathers again.

For the perfect autumn daydream

This dress is so dreamy. It is not a proper evening dress nor suitable for usual day wear. The dress is probably from the mid-thirties and is far more intricately designed that you see at first hand. The A/W collection of Ralph Lauren featured some floor length black with floral 30's style dresses. When I first saw them I wanted a dress like that, then I found this one. Ofcourse it is not exactly like it but it has the same feel, it fits in the same imaginary story.I could not find a good picture of the exact dresses I mean, but if you hapen to read Vogue or Harpers, the Ralph Lauren ads give you a pretty good idea. My fav dress is only seen from the back. It's at the bottom of the collage page where three models are walking in a garden. The dress at the left that the model is swirling around is the one for me. For fun just look at the leaves of the trees, not very autumnal, more like april,according to my dad.



You might call this a maxi dress and it has a kind of 70's vibe about it (though it is really 30's).
The fabric is quite thin and almost sheer but the colours are not meant for a summer day.



The sleeves are a little puffy at the top with a piece of filling on the inside. Just beow the elbow the sleeves are gathered with some pleats. I've seen this in many 1934/35 fashion plates.





This is a dress by Paquin from 1930. Below are some mid thirties fashion plates that have the same 'feel' as my dress, though they're not floor-length.











Now I need a wonderfull sunny autumn day to take the dress for a walk in the park or a forrest. As long as there's no mud or cycling involved it will be perfect. No matter that some people might stare I'll be in my own little dreamy world, just me and this dress.

Bored Housewife

I took these pictures when I was actually bored and sitting at home. End of vacation boredom seems miles away. I bought an agenda this year and it is full of things that keep me from ever getting bored.





In the background you can see my room. I broke a wine glass the evening before and used it as a prop. The empty bottles were also quite decorative (not emptied by me alone btw).



The dress is late 40's or 50's. It is made of man made silk that looks absolutely stunning. Green as a colour of jealousy fits perfectly with the theme of these pictures (I was really bored).





The character of this housewife is very different from mine.
So this is me pretending to be a housewife with a hangover. Bored with everything, sipping wine from a broken glass and what is in that green perfume bottle? Is it poison? Is it laudanum? For who is it intended:P.



I confess the pictures look a little silly to me now, at the time I just wanted something to do. And ah well they were a lot of fun to make, so I decided to upload them anyway.

Vionnet's referencing to historic fashions

Lots of designers now and in the past were and are inspired by the past. In Dutch there is a very, very 'old fashioned' saying "fashion is like a barrel when it is full turn it around"(in Dutch this rhimes).
As an Art History student this particularly interests me, because much of the knowledge we have of fashion before the emergence of photography comes from 'Art'.

When I saw a picture of some late 30's Vionnet gowns I was on my part inspired to write this entry.

First I'd like to give an example of a more known fashion photgraph of a Vionnet gown(see picture above). I love this picture in its own right but when I saw it I immediately thought "Ancient Greek and Hellenistic Sculpture". There is a Greek style of around the 2nd century that is called "wet drapery style". One of the best examples of this style is the Pergamon altar that is now in Berlin. The photograph closely resembles this particular style known for the abundance of draperies and dramatic postures.




Another example of this style is the Nike(as in the goddess of victory) statue that is now in the Louvre. It is quite clear the Greek/Hellenistic statues were an inspiration. Ofcourse this is not the first time classical Greek dress was an inportant influence in fashion, around 1800 the empire dresses were also modelled after ancient Greeks dress.



Then over to the picture that was the original inpsiration for writing this.
Is was published in 1938 in Harpers Bazaar. At first you can clearly see the more puffy style of Vionnet in the late 30's (as opposed to her famed sleek bias cuts of the years before).



Secondly I thought: Empress Eugenie. Eugenie was married to NapoleonIII of France in the middle of the 19th century. The photograph remembered me of this painting of Eugenie and her ladies in waiting. I found the dresses are called 'Winterhalter Dresses'after the painter of this painting Winterhalter.





Eugenie was an important style icon in her days and she was also inspired by the past. Marie-Antoinette was a big example for her. In this portrait Eugenie is painted in 18th century style.



Here is a portrait of Marie-Antoinette.




In 1850's/60's Eugenie promoted full skirts and all the fluff and puff of 18th century fashion (a fashion the formentioned empire style opposed to). The mid 19th century volume in skirts was ofcourse differntly shaped (by the crinoline) than the 18th century example (with paniers) but a style of the past is almost never copied exactly. Important is the feel of it, the evocation of the past, the nostalgia if you like, but always with reminders of the fact that this is not the past but 'now'. When compairing the two portraits you can see the portrait of Eugenie is not from the 18th century: 19th century beauty ideals shine through, the dress if off shoulder and in a 1860's oval shape with more volume at the back. This principle of emulation is also well known in art history.

Coming back to Vionnet: She used different styles of the past as an inspiration eventhough these styles might have been a sequence counterreactions against eatch-other in the past.

Well, this was a bit of a long entry with a lot of writing in an almost academic style. I'm under the influence of all the articles I'm reading for my studies. While writing this enty I almost automatically wanted to start referncing to sources etc.:P
Just one last picture of a Vionnet dress, very Art Deco(with some Chinese influences to be absolutely correct), inspired by her own age and the drawing naturally executed by a then contemporary artist.