Category: Clothing

War & Peace

Updated on February 25, 2016 by Janet Mullany

Bizarrely shown on three cable channels, A&E, Lifetime, and History, the BBC’s adaptation of War and Peace seems to have come and gone without much notice. And it deserves a lot of attention because this is one of the most dazzling series I’ve ever seen.

Here’s one reason why it’s so brilliant:

I had never read it before but was blown away with what a wonderful story it is. I thought it would be daunting and oppressive, but you just love the characters. It feels modern and fresh – funny and sexy, even. It’s mostly about these exciting young people on the threshold of their lives… really it’s the most fun I’ve had since Pride and Prejudice.

That’s Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay for the 1995 P&P and who tackled Tolstoy’s huge masterpiece, which tells the story of three interwoven families plus a zillion secondary characters, against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. More from this interview with him and the cast from Harpers Bazaar.

Everything about this is superb–the acting: it stars a lot of familiar faces, such as Lily James as Natasha who was pretty much wasted in Downton Abbey, and was great (but not as great as in this passionately nuanced role) in P&P&Z; Edward Norton, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea, Paul Dano, Gillian Anderson, and many more. There’s a list here at bbc.co.uk where the actors talk about their characters.

borodino It was filmed on location in Russia, Lithuania and Latvia, with lots of extras. There were extraordinary battle scenes (lots of blood), and a military advisor who’d seen action advised on these, so they had an amazing documentary sort of feel.

paul dano The retreat from Moscow was horrific and harrowing.

p039wyrg And the clothes, oh lordy the clothes (because if you visit this blog you know it all comes down to the clothes). Since we’re on the subject of warfare, I’ve never seen such splendid uniforms, embroidered, gilded, tasseled, and their wearers bursting with testosterone.

g.anderson One of the few costume fails was the designer’s attempt to express Gillian Anderson wearing an ooh la la French number. Really? Could the costume historians among us chime in? Because somehow, oh, I don’t know, I think this looks more high school prom than anything else. One shoulder?!!

Most of the clothes were gorgeous. War-_-Peace-lily_3539884b

To really get an idea of the clothes, and the quality of the production, you can see some selected scenes (but the longer clips can’t be viewed in the US) on the BBC’ s site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039wcdk/clips

You can take a quiz on your knowledge of the background of the book (I’m sad to say I failed miserably. Well, I did read it last in high school and that was a long, long time ago):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zw7cj6f

And here’s a truly swoonworthy excerpt of Natasha and Andrei (James Norton) dancing. He has truly humungous epaulettes.

Have you seen it? What did you think?

Posted in Clothing, History, Risky Regencies, TV and Film | 5 Replies

Democratization of Fashion

Updated on October 19, 2015 by Mary Blayney

Yes, that’s a pretentious title, a phrase I borrowed from the book COSTUME by Rachel Kemper for a blog I first wrote on the subject years ago. For Kemper fashion became available to the general populace, the masses, with the introduction of mail order catalogs. (Kemper’s book was first published in 1977 so Internet shopping had not yet become a factor in the retail world)

I don’t agree that fashion became available with the intro of catalogs. I think fashionable styles for everyone began with the invention of the sewing machine and, to some extent, before that with the use of machine produced cloth. Since the sewing machine did not come into common industrial usage until after 1850 be advised that this is a departure from my usual Regency based blogs.

Elias Howe patented his machine in 1846. Despite the difficulties of securing financial backing and suits for infringement of his patents, the sewing machine eventually became a significant element in the production of clothes. The sewing machine remains an easily recognized staple of fashion and craft work. I would not say “every home has one” but I think most who have easy access to the Internet would recognize one.

Shopping is my great escape (note: shopping, not buying). One of my favorite things to do is check out designer items at Saks and Neiman Marcus and then follow the styles down the economic scale to Kohls and Target. The phrase “knock off” is the current inelegant description of this process.

The dress with pink trim is by Missoni and cost more than $1,000. The Dress with the navy bodice is a “knock off” that costs $98. The difference, which is not apparent in the photos, is the quality of the product. The $98 dress will probably not last more than one season while the true Missoni can be worn for years, a veritable collector’s item.

Making that trend their own, designers like Vera Wang, of the fabulous (and expensive) wedding dresses, have designed clothes for Target, making stylish clothes available at an affordable price.

Here’s a look at this from a different perspective. The brilliant monologue on how a specific color made its way to the masses in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA delivered by Meryl Streep is one of my favorite illustrations of the “democratization of fashion.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL-KQij0I8I

Wearing clothes with a sense of style transcends economic status as the blogger www.Sartorialist.com illustrates. But the clothes have to be available. The sewing machine made that possible over one hundred years ago as has the mail order catalog and now the Internet.

After the printing press I think that the sewing machine was one of the great social equalizers of all time.

Your thoughts?

Posted in Clothing, History | 21 Replies

If you were a lady of Napoleon’s court…

Updated on September 17, 2015 by susanna

Of the many museums I visited in Paris this summer, some famous, others obscure, I particularly enjoyed the morning I spent at the Carnavalet Museum of the History of Paris. At the time they were hosting an exhibit on Napoleon’s Paris, and I thought of my fellow Riskies and our readers when I saw these dresses and accessories worn or carried by the ladies of the imperial court:

Embroidered dress

Sleeve detail

Such a deceptively simple dress, but can you imagine the hours of work that went into that embroidery?

This train is sheer grandeur:

Dress with train

And can you imagine flirting behind a fan like this?

fancy fan

This comb must have sparkled in its day:

Comb

I hope you’ve enjoyed this image-heavy post, and that your autumn is getting off to a great start! I promise to bring more actual text next month, when I won’t be scrambling because my daughter is starting 6th grade over a week behind schedule after a teacher strike.

Posted in Clothing, History | Tagged France, Susanna Fraser | 4 Replies

Red, Charlie boy. Red!

Updated on April 15, 2015 by Isobel Carr

As is often the case, today’s post is brought to you courtesy of Twitter. After the first episode of Wolf Hall aired, there was a raging debate about the colors used in the costumes. I think the main thing that set people off was Henry’s brocade doublet and his bright red schaub coat (how sad is that I only know the German name for that garment, because I’ve spent all my time in that period studying Landsknecht costuming?).

Several people said they were simply too bright, too vivid, etc. to be historically accurate. They landed particularly on the reds as being impossible to achieve in that era (and then purple got brought up, which I’ll tackle next time I post). When I was done scraping my jaw off the floor, the tweets were fast and furious.

To put it in a nutshell: YOU DO NOT NEED ANILINE DYES TO GET DEEP, BRIGHT, INTENSE COLORS! (and anyone who’s ever looked at extant textiles should know this)

Let’s outline the dye options open to Henry VIII (c. 1525, when he was trying to divorce Catherine):

First and foremost, there was madder root. Madder was cheap and plentiful. It produces decent reds, but is probably not what is being used to produce fancy brocades for the King of England. Top left you can see Dharma Trading’s madder root swatches, and as you can see, madder is pretty vivid on silk (and would be so on wool).

The next option is kermes, a red dye made from the body of a Mediterranean insect. It was used throughout Europe and was a highly desirable (and very expensive) dye stuff. If you had money, fabrics made with kermes dyes were readily available. They were widely in use by the Church and by the nobility (and the wealthy in general; we know they were widely available, because they had sumptuary laws about red in some places). The detail of a 16thC wall hanging to the right is most likely dyed with kermes.

After the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, you also have Mexican cochineal (first shipment in 1523, so it’s entirely possible that fabrics made with cochineal would have already joined those made with kermes on the open market). Bottom left you have Dharma Trading’s cochineal swatches, which on my compter are trending a little more purplish than they do in real life.

So, while I may have quibbles with the costuming on Wolf Hall (none of Anne’s gowns fit properly which I think is due to the fabric choices being too light for those style gowns; why are some of the men running around in jerkins with no doublets?!), I don’t have any qualms about the color of Henry’s brocade doublet or his overcoat.

For more examples of naturally dyed red clothing, see my post from last year about red Georgian era gowns.

Posted in Clothing, History, Isobel Carr, Rant, Research | 3 Replies

First Post as a “Risky”

Updated on February 18, 2015 by Isobel Carr

Comfort, 1815

I’ve been mulling over ideas for my first “official” post as a Risky, and in the end, I’m falling back on clothing (shocking, I know, LOL!). I thought I’d do a post about “risky” clothing, or drawers. After all, what’s more risky than a risqué garment that we now think of as a necessity!

Knee-length drawers are reported to have been worn by women as early as the turn of the 19th century, but they were considered fast and unladylike, and were not commonly adopted from what I can tell. I’ve consulted with a lot of costume historians and museum curators over the years, and none of them see them as a common garment in the records, household accounts, or as extant garments before the Victorian period, really.

Gilray,1810

They had a split crotch, usually being made up of two entirely separate legs on a drawstring waistband. An illustration from 1810 (included below) shows a lady wearing them, so it can be construed that they were somewhat accepted by then, but I do wonder as other images in the series seem to concentrate on highlighting the more deceptive aspects of a woman’s toilette (such as wigs).

Woven linen drawers, c. 1820

The extant pairs we DO have from the Regency all seem to date from the 1820s. They have a split crotch, usually being made up of two entirely separate legs on a drawstring waistband.

An illustration from 1810 shows a lady wearing them, so it can be construed that they were becoming more accepted by then, but I would still hazard that they were not a universal.

Exhibition Stare Case, 1811 Click for a larger image!

And I would make that guess because of other images that clearly show them as not being worn (such as Comfort at the top of the post and Exhibition Stare Case, left).

So it’s always worth remembering that the daring, fast, risky move in the Regency period was to put on a pair of drawers. I’d love to see a book where the hero is scandalized by discovering his lady love’s undies, and I fully expect that if anyone can write that book, it’s one of the marvelous women I now share this blog with.

I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with to talk about in 2015!

Posted in Clothing, History, Isobel Carr, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | 8 Replies