The Ornamented Being
Ornamented: -verb: Adorn; beautify. Be·ing: -noun: Fulfillment of possibilities; essential completeness.
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Drama darling
Evening ensemble
Yves Saint Laurent, Paris (French, founded 1961)
My Closet Now.
Fall/Winter 1983-84
Seriously go get in my closet.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
You think I’m joking but I’m definitely not.
(Source: metmuseum.org)
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I pride myself on always having words to describe something and yet they have failed me, I feel at an utter loss to describe the glory of this gown.
The romantic in me notes the symbolism of the butterfly. The metamorphosis from a child to a married woman. This gown reverberates with life and brings tears to my eyes.
I worry that sometimes I am to sensitive. I find that in my line of work I often have to think of the costume as it’s own entity, wondering about the life of the person who these items once adorned lead to so many questions. Many times I have wished that I had not pursued those thoughts to find out more on their life. I have been moved to tears of sorrow and anger at the unfairness of the treatment of women who came before me. I have discovered that they were prisoners in their beautiful silks, ensnared in brightly woven textiles, pinned alive and struggling for all to admire until at last they accepted their crepe veils and widows weeds before leaving this plane a broken being.
Yet I find myself hoping with every fibre of my being that whoever this woman was she had a beautiful and happy life. That the butterfly that graced the bodice on her wedding gown symbolized more than decoration, that it was true freedom from the cocoon. I’ll never know for sure but I will hope.
Bunka Gakuen Costume Museum
c. 1890
If it is possible could I please request a translation on this gown also: アール・ヌーヴォー期のドレスで、胸を張り出し、腰を後方に突き出したＳ字型スタイル。胸には模造パールで蝶を表しているが、この時代には昆虫をモチーフとしたアクセサリーなども多く見られる。スカートの裾周りにはコードを入れてシルエットを整えており、細いウエストから裾に向かう波のようにうねった曲線が優雅で美しい。
(Source: digmus.bunka.ac.jp)
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Bunka Gakuen Costume Museum
c.1910
I will confess that I am highly appreciative of the different and unusual views of the costumes in this collection. It’s so different from any other collection I have seen. The last photo is so unique and from a costumers perspective, so very welcomed.
(Source: digmus.bunka.ac.jp)
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… For we will be wicked and we will be fair And they’ll call us such names, and we really won’t care, So go, tell your Wendys, your Susans, your Janes, There’s a place they can go if they’re tired of chains, And our roads may be golden, or broken, or lost, But we’ll walk on them willingly, knowing the cost — We won’t take our place on the shelves. It’s better to fly and it’s better to die Say the wicked girls saving ourselves.
Seanan McGuire -
c. 1748 Tirelli Costumi
Corps à baleines - vers 1755
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Hamda Al Fahim
Spring/Summer Collection 2013
I am in lust with this gown.
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Hamda Al Fahim
Spring/ Summer 2013
I have always been a fan on unconventional shapes in fashion. I think what makes this gown so successful is the combination of the colour, the cascade of fabric down one hip and the surface decoration which draws your eye to the curve of her waist.
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Watch out for this costume at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath! Ensemble, réunissant une jupe, un corsage et un col, vers 1810-1815, jupe en mousseline de coton des Indes brodée au point de chaînette d’une haute bordure de feuillages, roses, lilas, muguets et autres fleurs des champs. Corsage taille haute en mousseline pékinée, croisé devant, décolleté en v, manches longues ajustées bordées de volants en dentelle de Lille. Col volanté en mousseline à la forme d’un croissant de lune, (rares petits trous, reprises anciennes, sans taille). My bad google translation: Together, bringing a skirt, a blouse and a collar to 1810-1815, chiffon skirt Indian cotton embroidered chain stitch a top border of leaves, roses, lilacs, lilies and other flowers. Bodice high waist chiffon pékinée, cross front v-neck, long fitted sleeves lined with lace ruffles Lille. Chiffon ruffled collar shape of a crescent moon (rare small holes, old times, no cutting).
(Source: catalogue.drouot.com)
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‘Vest feminine silk in two colors. With wide straight neckline, decorated with chopped technique with floral motifs and trimmed with satin stitch set blue. It closes in the back with eyelets. The female portraits of the time, namely the Queen Maria Luisa of Orleans made by the painter Carreño de Miranda, show us this kind of genuinely Spanish doublet’.
Baroque, ca. 1670 -1695; Güell Viscount Grant, 1934; Museum Traj
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Lady’s mule slippers with long, narrow Continental toe, early 18th century
Lady’s shoes, Swedish, c. 1700
Sofia Magdalena’s coronation shoes, 1771
Queen Desideria’s coronation shoes, 1829
Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s coronation shoes, 1751
Queen Victoria’s white silk atlas wedding shoes, 1881
Queen Desideria’s silk shoe, including a silk bow decorated with 31 gold-colored spangles
Mrs. Cappelen’s shoes, covered in white silk, from Paris c. 1850
Absolutely fantastic article! Please make sure to stop by and let her know how much you enjoyed the post!
‘In fact, some have described shoes as “candy for the eye, a poetry of the feet” ‘.
