The Ornamented Being

I found this very interesting: “The court ladies called it “putting on the armour” and it was rigidly defined what you could wear: 

Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm describes the court dress worn during the last reign by maids of honour in the chapter “The Ladies of the Imperial Court” in her book, The Russian Imperial Award System 1984-1917

Mistress of the Court: A russian style dress of gold embroidered raspberry velvet with a long skirt and an underskirt of white satin also richly embroidered in gold. The headdress was a kokoshnik of the same color velvet with a long white veil of lace or tulle.

Lady of Honour and Maids of Honour of the Bedchamber: Court costume was the same cut and design as that of the Mistress of the Court except the kokoshnik and the dress were made of dark green velvet.

Maids of Honour who attended the Empress: Same cut and design dress as above, but dress made of crimson velvet embroidered with gold.

Maids of Honour who attended Grand Duchesses (wives of Grand Dukes): Same as above made of crimson velvet embroidered with silver.

Maids of Honour who atteded Grand Duchess (Daughter or Grandaughter of Emperor): Same dress design and cut as those above, but made of light blue velvet.

Of note, Ms. Tillander-Godenhielm states that when maids of honour married, they had to retire from their position, but were allowed to attend court functions in court dress of the same cut, made of any material and ornamented in any fashion.

As noted in Mr. Nicholson’s article, maids of honour were required to wear the diamond studded chiffres.

The highest memebers of the imperial family wore cloth of silver and it was incredibly heavy and this was worn at events like weddings and coronations.”

(Source: lamodeillustree.livejournal.com)

I can ignore the fact that Snow White stole Alice’s armour but stealing Aragorn’s shield is unforgivable!

You see that face? That is not a very happy King of Gondor right there.

YES! Finally a photo I approve of from The Three Musketeers. I fully admit that I have no knowledge of armour but I like it. *hides*

I saw Cardinal R’s armour from this still and immediately though of Henri Motte’s stylised depiction of Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle.

I’d like to go ahead an announce my candidacy for President of Team Evil Queen.

(Warning: Clicking the smaller photos may bring about fainting and in some rare cases subjects have lost the will to live.)