Sweet dreams everyone!

The Sleeping Seamstress, Ad for Globéol by Gerda Wegener

c. 1915

Look! I found who I was in my past life!

Occupational portrait of a woman working at a sewing machine, sixth-plate daguerreotype, circa 1853.

” … As the pieces come together, help me sew seams that are straight, so that nothing tears apart or unravels; and when it does, show me where and how to patch with just the right touch… ”  

The Seamstress’ Prayer  by Jay Hanley

I love these photos so I’m going to have to post them again since they go with tomorrows House of Worth theme.

“Putting on the finishing touches at the atelier of the great Parisian designer Worth, in Paris, 1907”

THIS IS MY COSTUMIER ALTER-EGO

livorkdie:

Life isn’t easy for the Pin Cushion Queen, when she sits on her throne pins push through her spleen.

I am making this and I am going to wear it with pride. 

MGM seamstresses work on a costume for Romeo and Juliet, starring Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard. Some 1250 costumes were made for the 1936 production.

I found this ridiculously cool! 

It’s the mannequin for the Butterfly dress!!

Charles James (American, born Great Britain, 1906–1978)

c.1955

The Met says: This form was made for the original butterfly dress, which was made for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr. 2009.300.816 in this donation is another version of the butterfly dress.

arsvitaest:

Agnes Richter, held in an asylum for the insane in the 1890’s, embroidered text on her jacket, which was part of the uniform given to patients at the time.

from the Prinzhorn Collection

Heartbreaking. Also I found this to add on: Agnes Richter, a mental patient in Austrian asylum, embroidered her jacket with text. Through the script she transcribed herself into time, space and place. Her writing orients and disorients. Made in 1895, it is a standard issue uniform given to mental patients at the time. Richter has embroidered so intensively that reading impossible in certain areas of the garment. Words appear and disappear into seams and under layers of thread. There is no beginning or end, just spirals of intersecting fragmentary narratives. She is declarative: “I”, “mine”, “my jacket”, “my white stockings…., “I am in the Hubertusburg / ground floor”, “children”, “sister” and “cook”. In the inside she has written “1894 I am / I today woman”. She has also re-embroidered the laundry number printed on her jacket “ 583 Hubertusburg”, almost transforming something institutional and distant into something intimate, obsessive and possessive. It is a compelling piece of hypertext and untamed writing.

Sometimes I fancy myself a Lady Knight. Instead of wielding a sword my weapon of choice is scissors. My shield is a ball of yarn. My helmet a pin cushion and my small daggers; needles.