reading list

well since finding that the library at university actually had an amazing selection of books on 18th century fashion, and drifting around somewhat and ending up finding rather a lot of other books i fancied reading i now have quite a lot of books waiting to be read

at the minute i'm nearly finished a biography of madame de pompadour (louis xiv's mistress), which goes into amazing detail of the clothing worn during the period. This is definatly one that will have to be blogged about when i'm finished it, but for the minute i'm just going to leave you in suspense!

a few others on the waiting list include -

'the culture of clothing - dress and fashion in the anchiene regime' by daniel roche

(this is one that i found on uni's online library catalogue, and i've spent the last 3 weeks looking for it in the library, its a pretty big place!)

'the second sex' by simone de beaviour

(on feminism, looks interesting, it was one that was named during a lecture and sounded pretty good so i thought i'd give it a go)

marie antoinette inspired dress - part 3

Front of dress

Side view

Back of dress

Well as promised heres a few photos of the dress in-progress

As you can see i've got all of the pattern pieces sewn together, in part at least, the bodice is ewn together with arm sewn on, with stomacher pinned in place, the skirt is pleated and pinned in place, the petticoat is gathered and sewn in place (edit- when fitting it on my model we had a slight.....erm.....well mass ungathering and the whole skirt ungathered, my model got a bit carried away enjoying posing for photos wearing the dress, so now i have to find a more secure way of gathering about 4 metres of fabric, more research needed me thinks), sack back is pleated and pinned to the back

Having it all pinned at least gives me a decent idea of what work i still have to do before its really wearable, for example i think i'm going to add some sort of decoration down the front, and around the bottom of the skirt, perhaps little bows? I think it just needs a little something for aesthetic value.

next up will be photos of my fitting on my model when i figure out how to get them from my camera onto my computer.

marie antoinette inspired dress - part 2

Heres a quick picture of the fabric i'm using for the outer shell of the dress, and the matching stomacher and petticoat. As i described last time, the dull side is the soft suede and the shiny side the satin side (technically the wrong side but its the side i'll be using as the outside for the dress)

Gotten quite a bit done the past few weeks so a few in-progress photos will be up soon!

marie antoinette inspired dress

Well, having not posted very much up at all here, my blog is going to become a sort of dress diary over the next few weeks, featuring my rather challenging marie antoinette style dress make. I picked up the perfect fabric today, a creamy coffee shade of satin backed suede! Yes i know not very historically acurate but it was just so pretty and the perfect weight and it feels so nice!! I'm going to be using it satin side out, which leaves a very very soft suede feel on the back, so it's going to be comfortable to wear. Lining with an off white sateen weave fabric i found today too. All credit for the perfect fabric goes to the curtain factory in Blaydon, a store in the industrial estate near my house that i didn't even know was there untill the bus drove past on my way home from uni and I thought 'oohhh I'll just have a quick look they might have something to finish the pink patchwork quilt.......', I thought i'd buy up all the fabric I need for the dress while it was there (the store is a factory outlet so stock changes very fast and I didn't want to risk it not being there next time)

I'll be posting as I make, so keep checking back, this is probably going to take a few weeks.

few little things sewn

just a few little things sewn over the past few days, having had time due mainly to ignoring uni work, i've completed a set a pretty pink dungerees, and dress and fabric ball, stuffed with batting.

Queen of fashion, Caroline Weber

Well having finished reading Caroline Weber's book 'Queen of fashion-What Marie Antoinette wore to the revolution' this week, and feeling in quite a creative mood at the moment (spending the weekend at the OHs mums house for a few days holiday and I'm feeling quite calm and relaxed, hence creative and not so stressed about having uni work to do in time for going back on Monday) so I thought I'd write a quick review, to pass some time before bed.
Being quite passionate about historical costume, particularly 17th and 18th century, I love a good study of it. However, there are very few decent books on the subject, most are patterns and pictures (not that I don't love a good picture book!) recent films have been relatively good, for example Marie Antoinette and Dutchess. Caroline Weber's contribution though is an incredible contribution to the feild, written somewhere between being a novel and a textbook, so it's an interesting read, you get all of the info from a textbook, with the easiness of reading the novel.
Queen of Fashion talks about the life of Marie Antoinette, from her arrival in France at age 14, her marriage to the daupin Louis VXI, and their initially difficult marriage, through to her rise to being queen of fashion, France's most admired woman, through to her steady decline from power during the revolution to her eventual execution at the guillotine. The book concentrates on the queens control over her fashion choices, an approach which isn't taken by any other biographer of Marie Antoinette. Queen of Fashion acknowledges that the queens influence over her peoples aesthetic values was so great that even during the revolution when she was hated by them, her stylistic choices were still imitated.
The book takes a slightly biased approach, written from a sympathetic perspective to the queens plight, but overall it is a highly recommended read, for anyone, especially students, interested in historical costume.

http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Fashion-Marie-Antoinette-Revolution/dp/0312427344

(Link to amazon.com for Caroline Weber's Queen of fashion- what Marie Antoinette wore to the revolution)

new project, knitting!!

quick post, as i havn't posted in a while. I bought some amazing wool a while back but hadn't managed to do anything with it, so started a (almost) seamless baby onesie a few weeks ago. The wool is dye threee different colours, dark pink, light pink and white- in kinda patches, so it looks beautiful knitted!! Also, i've discovered my gran didn't teach me to knit, she taught me purl! so my knitte things are actually purl stitch but at least she taught me something usefull!
Pics to follow, i'll post pics of teh amazing wool too! I might even manage to post a pattern if i can manage to write one.