Edwardian Easter

For easter I want to wear one of my oldest wearable dresses. It is a dress that is probably from the late teens maybe the very early twenties. It still has that Edwardian teagown style, but is not floor length or tiny waisted.
I took the pictures quite long ago, it was for a project. The idea was to create pictures that looked like they were taken in another era. I tried to mimic the look of old-fashioned postcards :P.



I won't be wearing the dress quite like I did in the pictures. I'll give it a quick update with a little belt a blue underdress and a more understated hairstyle than the corckscrew curls in the picture. I'm thinking about wearing it with wedges.



The teagown style white with lace dress seems to be everywhere this summer so I might even end up looking 'hip' in a 90 year old dress.

1939 fashion plates

Summer ensemble with floral embroidery.

Here are some high quality french fashion plates I bought this weekend. They are from a 1939set of designs. Most of the pictures from this period are from magazines or cataloguesoften printed on thin paper. These ones are quite differentthey feel similar to the victorian type though not as delicately hand colored. They were probably shown to women to choose from at dressmakers shops. There's no text to acompany them, maybe there would have been a short intro at the beginning of a series but that probably would have been all.


Blue evening dress

I know this because a while ago I saw a several of these series in complete form in a museum where I did some research to find material for an exhibition I'm working on for another museum. Ofcourse I could not post immages of those plates on the internet since they belong to the museum and are not on display. I was amazed by them. Especially the use of color. Even the ones that were issued during the war were in bright lemon greens, shocking pinks and sky blue hues and printed on durable paper. Alltogether very different from most magazine pictures.


Autunm/winter dress


The pictures in this post strongly remember me of the series from the museum. I will be able to dispay those at the coming exhibition. Can't wait to show these hidden treasures to a public.


More subdued hues for a winter coat.

Spring!

Today was the first day the temperature allowed me to go out in a summer dress without stockings or anything with long sleeves. Perfect for wearing a summer dress I bought a somewhere in february. Ever since I bought this pastel ckeckered one along with another cotton nautical style dress I've been longing for temperatures above 20 degrees celsius!






Also a perfect day to take pictures between seas of spring flowers.

Arsenic & an old lace dress

This 40's dress is made out of the most wonderfull lace. Blue with pink flowers. It is trimmed with deep blue velvet ribbons. Very much a dress for february I'd say. The flowers are very springy. But let me just tell a little story:



Once upon a time there was a girl madly in love with an old lace dress. One afternoon she wore the dress, as she often did, when paying a visit to her neighbours who lived in a big delapidated house.
The family consited out of two parents and two children. There had been a grandma but noone had seen her for at least ten years. This aternoon the girl found the house in absolute silence, the door however was open so she walked in.........



On a table there was tea in a teacup waiting for her. She turned on the light because it was rather dark in the big lonely house.



She picked up the teacup and took a sip.



As she finished het tea she was surprized to find there was still some sugar residu left in het cup.



Then she heard a funny noise. She looked up but there was nothing to see.



After this all went black.......... What the girl had not knwon was that the dress had belonged to the old grann who was alive and kicking. Next to a profound love for her old dress granny was locked up by her family after several attempts to poison people she envied.




The day before granny had escaped and killed her ungratefull family. When she found out who owned her favorite dress she decided to kill the girl. From her window she had watched the girl come to tea at a particular afternoon every week for years. With a little bit arsenic she succeeded and the old lace dress was hers again.

Ok this was a little sick, but the story does have a happy ending doesn't it

A dress that smells of lavender

And it is January again. I don't like that period just after the holidays. Luckily there are plenty of dresses (and my birthday) to cheer me up, thought I always feel like dressing less sumptuous after the 1st of January. Subdued hues close to black and cool blues.



This is late 30's dress made out of a very dark purple artificial silk that fits very nicely to my current mood. Like a kind party of dress you'd wear when in mourning.



I love the design. The huge puffy sleeves are decorated with strips of the same fabric just like the skirt that is very wide (almost a circle) but it looks quite sleek.



When I bought this dress I thought it smelled like something from my grandmothers closet (that is positive). It was a little like lavender with something else. The smell came from the sous brasses, there was lavender sewn into them still producing a subtle smell after over 70 years.

X-mas red&white combo

So it is nearly Christmas. I've already decorated my room and my parents house(hope to post some pics in a few days). The only thing that needs decorating now is me!



On Christmas I'll be wearing more dressy outfits but during the week leading up to Christmas I'm getting in the mood with warm red& white (just like Santa).



This 30's/40's rayon dress is perfect (also perfect for my rusty-red coat). It already has a white collar. Warm tights and a beret finish the look (white gloves for going out, and since there's an unusual amount of snow in the Netherlands: boots).

Variations on my dress part 5: Gold&black velvet

The very last variation. This time the simple dress is made fit to wear during the holidays. I'm wearing the dress with a black velvet belt with a gold-coloured buckle and velvet/gold wedges. The hat and the purse are also made of velvet. I actually wore the dress like this last old years eve(with more robust shoes because I had to walk through the snow quite a bit).



Now that might look like an understated outfit for such a big night but is was very very cold (and slippery) and this dress is very warm and not itchy.



Anyway I like velvet and it is a perfect party fabric, it also tones down the fake gold. I plan to wear lots of velvet coming holidays, but more about that in a while.