Gala Ball + tuxedos + beautiful gowns = funds for a great cause!
A big weekend at our gala Ball to raise funds for cystic fibrosis… enjoy some Ball inspiration.
A delectable collection of dresses by Charles James for Vogue, June 1948.
{Images: 1. Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) via Rococo Revisited; 2 & 3. Norman Parkinson}
This gorgeous dress is from the Darnell Collection of vintage dresses, and the stories have been captured in a book, Dreaming of Chanel by her goddaughter, Charlotte Smith.
Dress from the Dreaming of Chanel exhibition at QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, curated by Nadia Buick.
{Images via The Spring and my modern vintage fashion}
Sumptuous evening gowns capturing the mood of Hitchcock classics
~ think Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren…
{Image Grace Kelly via Vintage Clothing}
Vintage Fashion :: coif your hair, wear lots of red lipstick and drink martinis!!
Marie Claire featured a gorgeous 50’s style shoot called ‘Love Me Tender’
photographed with real life retro loving people and the cool venues they hang out in
including Sydney restaurant, Porteno.
Love Me Tender :: Marie Claire AU July 2011
Photography: Hugh Stewart. Produced by Pia Andersen. Styled by Jane Roarty featuring model Fabienne.
{Images via dust jacket attic}
I stumbled upon this story when writing about Mrs. Press in my previous post,
and it was so moving I wanted to share it with you all.
Clare Press with one of Maureen Ryan's vintage dresses. Photo: Damien Pleming
Sometimes a frock is more than just a piece of clothing.
Fashion retailer Clare Press recalls a touching case in point.
… Maureen was looking for something fabulous, flattering and 1950s-inspired to wear to her son’s wedding on Scotland Island….
“I have just the dress,” I said, knowing that I really, truly did. I had recently bought some exquisite pieces from a vintage fashion collector who had assembled her treasures over a 30-year period before finally admitting defeat – her house was overflowing.
Among the pieces I’d selected was a scoop-necked, full-skirted number cut from fine cream silk and covered all over with turquoise polka dots. Those dots could have made a lesser dress ditsy, but this one had such good breeding that the decoration only rendered it oh-so-fashionably festive. I showed it to Maureen and her eyes lit up. When she tried it on, it fitted as if it had been made for her. “I’ve never bought a vintage dress,” she said. “But I like the idea.
I wonder who owned it and where they wore it?” “I don’t know,” I said. “But I feel sure that they danced in it.”
“I bet they did! Danced the night away,” she said.
“So there’s no point in showing you this other one,” I said, “but I will just in case you prefer it.” The second dress was silk, too, and also from the 1950s.
Printed with a gorgeous blurry floral of teal blues and greys on a black background, it was slightly less dressy – pencil skirted, but beautifully shaped to emphasise the waist. And it fitted a treat, too.
“Get the polka dots,” I said. “They are perfect for a wedding.”
“I’m getting them both,” said Maureen. “I love them. This is so much fun!” She’d found the fashion Holy Grail – shopping on a mission and having fun …
A month later Maureen emailed me some gorgeous photos of herself smiling in the sunlight in the polka-dot dress, a handsome man beside her, and blue water glinting in the background. She and the dress had obviously become great friends: they looked beautiful together.
I didn’t expect to see Maureen’s dresses again.
They had been passed on to the right person and were clearly having a ball. But last week I came downstairs into my new store and my eyes fell immediately on a familiar blur of blue and black.
I asked Fay, who works for me, how the dress came back. Her face crumpled. Maureen’s husband, Mike, had driven from Canberra to return it to us.
Maureen Ryan passed away from a brain disease on August 16. Her son’s new baby was yet to be born. It was cruelly, shockingly quick. Her illness hit her like a freight train, and four days after she collapsed she was gone. “She was my sweetheart of 41 years,” Mike told me over the phone. “I loved her so much. There wasn’t enough time …” He trailed off.
“It’s not fair!” was all I could think to say. But Mike was focused on the reason for our conversation. They buried Maureen in the polka-dot dress; the dress she’d danced so happily in less than a year before. The floral dress was left behind.
“It didn’t feel right to throw it away. I remember her smiling in it. She liked the idea of the vintage dress having a history, belonging to someone who had enjoyed it. I believe she would have liked me to pass it on.”
I didn’t know Maureen, not really, but I knew her dress. And that dress loved her. Looking at it now it seems forlorn, as if it feels her loss. But dresses, like people, can be amazingly resilient. I know that eventually it will be ready to dance another day. It has to – because I promised Mike it would.
Clare Press, Sunday Life, September 28, 2010
{Story & image by Clare Press via here}
Clare Press is the gorgeous creative force behind Mrs. Press.
It was lovely to chat with her when I dropped by her very pretty salon on Oxford Street
that is filled with her own fashion label, Mrs. Press, and special vintage garments,
carefully renovated or impeccably preserved.
Of course I couldn’t leave empty handed!
The divine shop interior of Mrs. Press, Sydney
Mrs. Press is a thoroughly modern girl to be sure, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t
like things to be done properly. That means silk knickers at all times, and the perfect satin
slip to make a dress look the bee’s knees. Truth be told, she often wears them with nothing
much else. Our girl loves to loll about at home dressed to thrill. She loves parties too,
of course. Who doesn’t? Sometimes it feels as if life is one big party.
As well as fashion Mrs. Press has a sumptuous Dressing Table range of candles and triple milled soaps, scented drawer liners, hand creams, shower gels, body lotions and room sprays in three signature fragrances.
Clare has a lovely blog – I could relate this line in her intro!
… In another life I would live in a villa in Florence, travel with my maid and order my hats from Reboux.
{Images via Mrs. Press and shop interior pics by Helen Fitzgerald}
On the 9th day of Christmas,
nine models posed like Greek goddesses, wearing glamorous frosted pastel gowns.
Models in dresses by Charles James Dresses, 1948
Charles James (American, born Great Britain, 1906-1978)
Vogue, June 1948 Photograph by Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
I love the serendipity of blogging! I discovered this wonderful post on Style Diary while I was creating my Christian Dior post ~ it’s a visual feast of beautiful vintage couture fashion that is traced through time and is the creation of a Romanian style consultant. Enjoy a glass of champagne and savour this re-blogged entry…… {Note, as I don’t speak Romanian, I have used Google translation.}
I recently discovered photos of incredibly sophisticated, shaped by light, the photographer Henry Clarke (who lived from 1918 to 1996) – especially loved the fashion and haute couture.
Born in Los Angeles with his family moved to San Francisco in 1932… In 1946, he went to New York and became assistant to the Vogue studios, which is responsible for accessories and background images. Here, after he met Cecil Beaton and the model Dorian Leigh, he decides to become a fashion photographer. He buys a Rolleiflex camera and begins to work, and in 1949 moved to Paris.
During the 50s and 60s until the late ’70s (its peak), works for all editions of Vogue – American, French and British – and with a few famous models (Suzy Parker, Ann Sainte-Marie Bettina) manages to capture the elegant woman of those times: the young, seductive nonchalance.
At the time when Diana Vreeland leads Vogue and air travel was making exotic locations more accessible, Clarke traveled to India, Sicily, Mexico, Iran, Jordan and Syria for the pictorial. It captures many portraits of famous women – Sophia Loren, Coco Chanel, Anna Magnani, Maria Callas, Anouk Aimee are among his most famous subjects.
Clarke died of leukemia in April 1996, in southern France at the age of 77 years. All his photos were published in L’Elegance des Annees Cinque, leaving an inheritance for his collection et du Musée de la Mode.
{1951 – Clarke’s studio}
{1951 – Model wearing a coat Griffe}
{1952 - Margaret Philips for Givenchy}
{1952 – Contesa Consuelo Crespi}
{1953}
{1953 – Suzy Parker}
{1954 – Dorian Leigh for Jean Dess}
{1954 – model for Balmain}
{1954 – Coco Chanel}
{1955 – Dorian Leigh in Patou}
{1955 – Ann Sainte-Marie pentru Christian Dior}
{1956 - Dovima for Jacques Fath}
{1957 – Blanurile Canada}
{1957 – Margaret Philips}
{1957}
{1959 – Simone Daillencourt in both photos}
{1959- Ann Saint-Marie for Saks Fifth Avenue}
{1959 – Rose Marie for Givenchy}
{1959 – designer Marie Helene Arnaud, in Chanel}
{1959 – Model wearing a hat and a brooch}
{1960 – pictorial Summer Pleasures for Vogue}
{1965 – Baronesa Fiona Thyssen-Bornemisza}
{1966 – model wearing an asymmetrical chiffon dress by Malcolm Starr}
{1967 – Princess Ira von Furstenberg, in an outfit by Ungaro}
To view the full post go to Style Diary; or to view more images of Henry Clarke visit acesta & urmatorul
Christian Dior debuted his first collection, Corelle ~ circlet of flower petals.
“I have designed flower women”
Famed French designer, Christian Dior said when he launched Corolle
(the French word for the botanical term corolla or circlet of flower petals),
his first collection on 12th February 1947 with voluptuous, soft silhouettes.
beautiful, feminine clothes, soft rounded shapes, full flowing skirts,
nipped-in waists and hemlines below the knee.
He wanted to make women feel like beautiful flowers.
This collection ushered in the New Look. Gone were the boxy, conservative styles of the war period with Dior’s decadent use of corsets and swaths of material reminiscent of the “Belle Epoque”.
Most of the dresses used between 10 to 80 yards of material: They were as wide, long, and sumptuous. Evening dresses were made with bouffant skirts, layer after layer of tulle.
Dior’s New Look of 1947, The Corolle or figure 8 collection and the design called Bar.
Called “Bar,” a shantung silk jacket over a black pleated skirt (above), became the most well-known of Dior’s New Look creations. Featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and long pleated wool full skirt, backed with cambric, it is exceptionally heavy. The New Look celebrated ultra-femininity and opulence in women’s fashion. Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief, Carmel Snow, named Dior’s revolutionary direction, ‘New Look.’
The “Bar” suit and hat: tight fitting jacket with padded hips which emphasized the small waist {Paris 1948}
1948 Janine Klein wearing Diors ‘New Look’. Photos of above two images, Clifford Coffin.
After the war women longed for frivolity in dress and desired feminine clothes that did not look like a civilian version of a military uniform. Evening versions of the New Look were very glamorous and consisted of strapless boned tops with full skirts and were ultra feminine.
The shaped fitted jacket Dior designed with his New Look full skirt was also teamed with a straight mid calf length skirt. Women usually wore just underwear beneath the buttoned up jacket, or filled in the neckline with a satin foulard head scarf, dickey or bib.
After years of military and civilian uniforms, sartorial restrictions and shortages,
Dior offered not merely a new look but a new outlook.
Ann Sainte-Marie, Christian Dior 1955
Detail of the ‘Bar’ suit jacket (Silk shantung & wool crêpe) by Christian Dior.
The jacket required 3.7 metres of silk shantung and fastened with five hand-stitched buttons.
This information helped Dior to price the design. ‘Bar’ cost 59,000 francs.
Below, the notebook contains a sketch and specifications for the type and quantity of fabric for Dior’s ‘Bar’ suit.
Dior helped to restore a beleaguered postwar Paris as the capital of fashion.
Each of his collections throughout this period had a theme. In all Dior presented 22 collections.
Dior Haute Salon, 1957
Spring 1947 was ‘Carolle’ or ‘figure 8’
~ a name that suggested the silhouette of the New Look, comprised of 90 designs.
The spring 1953 collection, dubbed Tulip,
featured an abundance of floaty, flowery prints.
Spring 1955′s A-line,
with its undefined waist and smooth silhouette that widened over the hips and legs, resembled a capital “A.”
1950 Christian Dior evening dress
1954 Christian Dior dress
He was a master at creating shapes and silhouettes; His look employed fabrics lined predominantly with percale, boned bustier-style bodices, hip padding, wasp-waisted corsets and petticoats that made his dresses flare out from the waist, giving his models a very curvaceous form. The hemlines were very flattering on the calves and ankles, creating a beautiful silhouette.
Fiona Campbell-Walter wearing Dior’s fishscale evening gown with black velvet bow accent, 1955
The House of Dior attracted glamorous clients including Ava Gardner, Marlene Dietrich, Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Windsor. Rita Hayworth chose an evening gown for the première of her film Gilda; the ballerina Margot Fonteyn bought a suit.
Dior was invited to stage a private presentation of that season’s show for the British royal family, although King George V forbade Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret from wearing the New Look, which he feared would set a bad example at a time when rationing was still in force.
While women all over the world embraced Dior’s “New Look,” many considered it excessive and wasteful. Models had their clothes torn off and many Governments around the world condemned the collection as extravagant and outrageous. Some of Dior’s skirts used 10 to 25 yards of fabric, after all.
The British Government requested all English women to boycott Dior. However, when Princess Margaret, the leader of British fashion, wore the New Look, the Board of Trade gave up and said, “We cannot dictate to women the length of their skirts.”
Suzy Parker wearing Dior’s white evening gown with matching shawl, 1954
Photo by Philippe Pottier, 1948
Christian was born in 1905. His childhood home, now a museum dedicated to him, is located in the town of Granville in Normandy on a cliff overlooking the sea. The villa is known as Les Rhumbs (the name came from the rhombus-shaped points of the compass in the mosaic floor of the house).
The beautiful gardens were originally designed by Dior’s mother, Madeleine who spent most of her life cultivating flowers, turning this hobby into a mission, using it to mask the sickening smells coming from her husband’s fertilisizer factory.
The French designer’s love for nature, plants, flowers and designing gardens, was a passion he inherited from his mother, Madeleine. The horticultural endeavours of Madeleine, and Dior’s own gardens at La Colle Noire, his last residence near Grasse, have inspired Dior.
Young Christian learnt the names of plants and flowers during his mother’s conversations with gardeners and from colourful mail-order seed catalogues he found lying around the house.
Acceding to his parents’ wishes, Dior attended the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris to study politics. The family, whose fortune was derived from the manufacture of fertilizer, had hopes he would become a diplomat, but Dior only wished to be involved in the arts. To make money, he sold his fashion sketches on the streets for about 10 cents for each. In 1928, his father gave him enough money to open an art gallery – on condition that the family name did not appear above the door. Dior named his venture, Galerie Jacques Bonjean, where he sold art by the likes of Pablo Picasso, and it soon became an avant garde haunt.
In 1931 Dior’s mother and brother died, and his family lost the family business. Dior was forced to close the art gallery and began selling his dress designs to fashion houses. In 1942, having left the Army having been called up for military service, Dior joined the fashion house of Lucien Lelong where he and Pierre Balmain were the primary designers. On 8 October 1946 Dior founded his own fashion house at 30 Ave Montaigne, backed by Marcel Boussac, the textile magnate. The salon was modest mansion that was decorated in Dior’s favourite colours of white and grey and embellished in Dior’s version of a Louis XVl salon.
Dior also had sound commercial instincts. A US hosiery company offered the enormous fee of $10,000 for the rights to manufacture Dior stockings, but the couturier proposed waïving the fee in favour of a percentage of the product’s sales. He thereby introduced the royalty payment system to fashion.
At the same time, Dior was highly superstitious. Dior never began a couture show without consulting his tarot card reader.
Christian Dior’s favorite flower was the lily-of-the-valley {Convallaria majalis}, which he considered a symbol of happiness and hope. Every collection included a coat called the ‘Granville’, named after his birthplace and at least one model wore a bunch of lily of the valley.
And Dior decided to bestow his customers with a very personal amulet, Diorissimo, the emblematic fragrance that was created in 1956 by Edmond Roudnitska after years of studying lilies of the valley.
{Images & Sources: Art Tattler; Vogue Web blog; factoidz; Fashion Doll Review; skorver1′s photostream; Fashion Lifestyle; and Les Rhumbs photos by Ritournelle}
Enjoy a ride on the White Carousel Take pleasure in the journey. I hope you feel happy & inspired.
Love, Cate
