gown

Doris Day’s White Evening Gown from Pillow Talk

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I got an e-mail from one of my readers, Kim, a while back, talking about the designs of Irene Lentz, a costume designer who worked on some Doris Day movies that she recommended to me, one of which was Pillow Talk. I have to do further viewing before I can be familiar with her work, though — it looks like Pillow Talk was costumed by Jean Louis (who, credited for “gowns,” probably designed this costume) and Bill Thomas. Anyways, whoever designed them, I love Doris Day’s outfits in the movie. Her character is an interior designer, and she always looks fabulous: the movie was released in 1959, and her clothes are right there between smart 1950s femininity and 1960s clean style. The movie itself was something I had to kind of turn off the overly serious and feminist parts of my brain to enjoy: I know it’s supposed to be a light-hearted sex comedy, and the way the guy manipulated the girl (and her revenge) was really quite amusing. Still, when viewers are supposed to take the baby at the end as proof that our hero and heroine achieved ‘happily ever after’, it signified to me “she’s got three, four years tops before he gets bored of her.” Yeah, call me a cynic but I can’t watch a movie like that without scripting out a few months worth of premarital counseling for the dysfunctional couple in my head. Doesn’t mean I don’t have the other Day/Hudson movies on reserve at the library…

Recession Themed Robe à la Anglais in White and Green with Pouf à la Bailout

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So, my husband and I live in Michigan, more specifically in Ann Arbor, one of the cities surrounding Detroit. On the good side, it’s almost spring and there’s nothing like the University of Michigan campus when everything is blooming and the students come out of hiding to play Frisbee by the Diag. On the bad side, the unemployment rate is 11% and our poor state is national shorthand for a grim future. Now, if I was a more diligent, self-promoting kind of artist, instead of the flighty, self-doubting, unambitious dabbler that I am, I would be taking advantage of the sad state of American finances, pitching books, putting out press releases, writing up guest posts for other blogs and who knows what else. Why’s this? Because paper dolls are the perfect toy for the modern recession.

Think of it: Iris and Sylvia can wear anything I draw, so it’s not like a regular old book with a limited number of outfits, and you can print this crazy gown for just as much money as it takes to print this subtle shift. Barbie can’t seamlessly transform into a mermaid or a ninja near as well as my girls do, and I doubt her people would let her dress up in anything too creepy. And you know what else? No Barbie doll, no other paper doll out there, no one in the world period, has a terrifying cross between one of Marie Antoinette’s court gowns and the symbols of American financial catastrophe. Yes, this may be a slightly strange toy, but that’s OK: for those that don’t yet see the tumbling Dow in the skirt, print out this pretty princess instead. We who see the humor of the pink slip petticoat and pouf à la bailout will play princesses of a more desperate time and space. Pass the cake.

Yes, I’m reading Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore To The Revolution and loving it. (thanks RLC for the recommendation!) See, I’ve always thought of 1800s fashions as beautiful and elegant (and OK, maybe at worst endearingly funny-looking) but I never could get into 1700s fashions, with the goofy hair and panniers and all. But this bias is probably because so many classic books I’ve read are set in the 1800s: the Austen books, of course, but also Vanity Fair, Little Women, Sherlock Holmes, the Anne series, Gone With The Wind, Edith Wharton novels, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina — anyways, I can go on and on, but the point is that reading / watching movies based on / paperdolling these books gave me a vague idea of the 1800s in European / American women’s costume. However, I don’t have a similar basis for the 18th century. The only ones I can think of offhand are the Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities and the Scarlet Pimpernel series, and Evelina which I just finished. Somehow, looking at all the robes a la polonaise for Evelina flipped a switch somewhere, and now I’m intrigued by that same goofy hair and panniers. I’d like to get more into fiction from the 1700s or set in the 1700s. Can anyone recommend anything for me? I’d love to have some 18th century audiobooks from Librivox, but I’ll also go the old fashioned way.

The hairpiece will sort of fit both dolls, but there’s one part of Iris’ hair that you would have to bend back. My next series of dolls will be bald.

Bella Swan’s Anne of Green Gables Inspired Wedding Gown with White Satin and Rose Lace from Breaking Dawn

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In the final book of the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, Bella and Edward get married. Bella, whose parents are divorced, has never really seen marriage as a desirable life goal, doesn’t want people to think she’s pregnant and she worries about branding herself a desperate, vapid girl insistent on getting married right out of high school. Certainly nothing says “commitment” like forsaking humanity and spending eternity with someone, so what’s the point of a wedding? Old-fashioned Edward, however, wants to be married, and Bella comes around to his point of view, starting to consider it natural and happy for two people in love to be married, and to heck with the gossips and disapproval of society and her family. She keeps thinking of Anne of Green Gables, of the simpler time she associates with when Edward would have been young, of the high-necked blouse and long skirt she would wear.

Bella guesses that the inspiration was from 1918 when she sees her dress, Alice replies more or less and Liana tears her hair out. Here I thought we were using an Anne-centric timeline, but only in the miniseries did Anne get married during the First World War — in the books, Anne got married in 1890, according to this page, and WWI was her daughter Rilla’s turn as a heroine. So what does Bella’s dress look like? Victorian-style clothes play a large role in her fantasy of simple romance, and she says, looking at the dress, that it’s just what she imagined. Yet, a dress from 1918 probably wouldn’t have that Victorian high neck, or maybe not even the long skirt. It must also be noted that 1918 is when Edward was transformed into a vampire at the age of 17, so a dress from this age would probably appeal to him more than something his mom would have worn. 1918 would also be about right, if Bella’s mother, who thought the gown looked like something from a Jane Austen novel, was a hundred years off. Then Alice was stage-managing the whole thing, and I have a really hard time seeing her send Bella out in an unfashionable wedding dress. No one does high necks anymore, not even LDS members going for modesty, and long sleeves seem to be relegated to the Éowyn look. So what exactly do we have here? An Anne-style 1890 gown with puffed sleeves? A streamlined, more fashionable but still modest 1918 gown? A modern dress with vintage touches? I’ve been trying to decide for the last week.

So yeah, at this point I think I may have pondered the dress — possibly overthought the dress — more than the author, and it’s been maddening. Maybe it’s like the prom dress: however you see it is right. (Witness the range of Twilight wedding dresses on deviantart.) That means I’m going to stop trying to come up with something perfect and just go with a pseudo-1890s gown, taking Bella at her word that she wanted to dress like Anne and got her wish. But you could just as easily assume that Bella only saw the miniseries, so maybe I’ll draw a 1918 gown too, another day. Trying to combine the two — yeah, I got some pretty funny sketches out of the idea, but I think I’ll pass. In my sketches of this dress, she has her hair down and even though it’s old-fashioned, it’s still romantic and sweet.

Wiki Dress #2: Gold Harvest Gown with Green Peplum and Celtic Patterns

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Now, I happen to know my mom edited this revision of this dress, and therefore it had to be drawn, because my mom’s awesome. I think I ought to ask her to design me dresses more often when I’m feeling unimaginative! She’s also more dangerous with the Prismacolors than I am – she does absolutely gorgeous drawings of flowers and plants on cards, then sends them to people. She jokes that you only get to come to her funeral if you got a drawing from her. Here was her description of the dress:

A sunflower yellow bodice,green peplum with a beyond floor-length skirt done in blended colors of harvest. The hem is heavily decorated with a matching line of Celtic designs in dark blue, with golden accents.

The neckline is decorated with very small dark gold and blue accents, with tiny sparkling swarovski crystals and blue pearls in the center. The waist is decorated with a slim swirly golden pattern and small crystal beads, and the skirt is draped, cascading down to the floor.

She also has a pair of long dark green gloves that reach halfway up. The back of each hand is embroidered with harvest and Celtic designs. On her feet are soft blue satin slippers.She also has a subtle webbed crystal frill tiara (worn front-to-back)with dripping tiny blue seed pearls. Around her neck is a matching crystal and single pearl necklace.

I guess you have to imagine the satin slippers, and there wasn’t enough space on the glove for a harvest design, but I think this came out really nicely and hopefully close to what Mom was imagining. This is one where I wish I could show you all the original — the harvest colors on the skirt are a lot prettier on the real thing. It made me decidedly twitchy to finish coloring the skirt, then draw patterns all over the hem, but it worked, I think!