Elegance

During the course of my career I used to have to dress quite smartly in business suits (remember those very wide shoulder-padded jackets of the 80s and early 90s?) and dresses. Now I'm retired, I only own about three dresses and a couple of jackets. I'm invariably dressed in casual wear: jeans, trousers, T-shirts and sweaters, walking gear. So I can't really go complaining but I do somewhat regret our societal slide-down, away from the elegance of some earlier eras. When I lived in my old house, built in 1901, I often used to wonder what it must have felt like to have to go up and down the steep stairs in long skirts, as would have been the norm then. 

It was interesting to me to see some of the historical outfits displayed in the Bankfield Museum. You have to marvel at the detail, much of it, I should imagine, stitched by hand. The exhibition was showing how modern costume designers study historic clothes in minute detail to work out how they're made, down to the details of the stitching, buttons and everything. 

I think the 1930s was a very glamorous time. I loved the two evening dresses (above) from that period, one midnight blue silk velvet and the other jade silk with gold embroidered beading, both bias cut to emphasise the natural curves of the body. I think you'd feel very elegant in those, even move differently perhaps. I imagine actors wearing costumes that are historically accurate must find they help with the characterisation and movement of the performance. 

The sketches were examples of how designers research dresses, fabric and patterns. 

The mushroom coloured coat with concealed buttons, above, is a 1930s original. The day dress is modern but heavily influenced by late 1920s style.