The Ornamented Being

c. 1790

I’m thinking this is part of a Regional costume. I took notes on what Jenny Tiramani and Luca Costigliolo were saying about a pair similar to this. The over skirt would go over the hip pads and either the front or the back would be pulled over the top of the skirt. I just can’t find my notebook from that session.

(Source: objektkatalog.gnm.de)

And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness as long as they lived.

“Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught.”

“Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?”

“The devil has told you that! the devil has told you that!” cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in; and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.

“But when the witch bent down to peer inside the oven and check the heat, Gretel gave her a tremendous push and slammed the oven door shut. The witch had come to a fit and proper end.”

“ And when she saw her she knew her for Snow-white, and could not stir from the place for anger and terror. For they had ready red-hot iron shoes, in which she had to dance until she fell down dead.”

“When she is fifteen years old, the Princess shall prick herself with a spindle and shall fall down dead!”

“The snow-flakes grew larger and larger, till at last they looked just like great white fowls. Suddenly they flew on one side; the large sledge stopped, and the person who drove rose up. It was a lady; her cloak and cap were of snow. She was tall and of slender figure, and of a dazzling whiteness. It was the Snow Queen.  … The Snow Queen kissed Kay once more … “Now you will have no more kisses,” said she, “or else I should kiss you to death!”“

  ‘Aha!’ she cried mockingly, ‘you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.’

“You are very ungrateful,” said the Beast to him, in a terrible voice; “I have saved your life by receiving you into my castle, and, in return, you steal my roses, which I value beyond any thing in the universe, but you shall die for it; I give you but a quarter of an hour to prepare yourself, and say your prayers.”

The wolf is carnivore incarnate and he’s as cunning as he is ferocious; once he’s had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do.” 
— Angela Carter

I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion - a blind and aimless Fury.The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm - she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses!^[1]

—Lewis Carroll, in “Alice on the Stage”

“‘Rock ‘n’ roll is full of Peter Pans. Where’s Captain Hook?’ And I will gladly be Captain Hook. I always thought the villain always got the best lines. The villain was always the one that everybody kind of really wanted to see…”

- Alice Cooper