Red Lace

From the Marchesa Fall Winter 2011/2012 Ready-To-Wear collection. The model is Lee Hyun Li.

The collection was inspired by the Dickens character Miss Havisham.

I'm guessing that Marchesa had the lace made from scratch for this dress so that the designs would fall perfectly symmetrically. Matching lace is a very tricky task, even when you're dealing with thicker, more commonplace stuff. I'd be really interested to learn how this dress was constructed. Although lace matching can cover seams flawlessly, there don't seem to be any seams in the train.

Bright Edwardian Colours

These gowns are both from the Kyoto Costume Institute and date from c.1911.

The dress on the left is by Jeanne Lanvin, and is green silk chiffon and tulle lace, floral embroidery, and rose flower ornament.

As for the dress on this right, much less is known of its origin; I can only say that it uses beige silk tulle and pink silk chiffon, floral embroidery of beads and fake pearls, and gold cord embroidery on skirt.

The KCI also says this about the dresses:

"These dresses have a high waist silhouette, which is representative of the early 1910s. This silhouette spread among designers, starting from Paul Poiret's "Lola Montez" dress in 1906. Distinctive, vivid colors on delicate materials such as silk chiffon were achieved in this period by use of synthetic dyes. These hues can be also found in the highly exotic, strong colors used in the costume of the Ballets Russes, which first performed in Paris in 1909. Those colors immediately influenced fashion circles, and in the early 1910s, the streets were filled with vivid colors like those seen in these dresses." 

Despite any fashion for brightly coloured dyes, almost all the images I see of outfits from the Edwardian period are (for obvious reasons) severely monochrome. It's amazing to see the real colours- and so vivid after a hundred years! The curators of these gowns have done a bang-up job.

Introduction

And so I greet the lang of Blog with a cheery hello. My name is Jenny, but do forgive me if I don't learn all of yours- there are such a lot of you out there. I'm currently living in York, UK.

I've been interested in clothing and costumes for a number of years now, and I sew a lot. Pretty much all of my seamstress skills are self-taught, relying on the bounty and wonder of the internet, in particular the sewing blogosphere. So having drawn on the skills and experience of the Internet for so long, I thought I should start giving back. I'll be posting images and commentary on all areas of fashion and costume, with a particular emphasis on taking clothes apart and finding out what makes them tick. This isn't your average fashion blog- I won't be predicting trends, scanning red carpets or giving style tips. Instead I'll be posting pictures of garments I find interesting and beautiful, and looking at how they came to be. I'll also be showing you my progress on garments I'm making for myself, on costumes for shows I'm working on, and on the third corner of my workbench: my hats.

I design and make fully-customisable top hats, often with a seriously geeky bent. My mission is to reclaim the top hat from its stuffy and outdated image and reclaim it as a real option for day-wear. Wherever possible, I use salvaged and reclaimed materials.