Worn to Dance: A 1920s Fashion and Beading Exhibit at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles
By Kij Greenwood Buckle up your dancing shoes and throw away your cares, because the Twenties are coming back around! Almost one hundred years ago, the Jazz Age saw dramatic social change in America. A new generation of women was, for the first time ever, voting, driving, spending their own money, smoking and drinking in public, bobbing their long hair, […]
Pleasure and Beauty in La Belle Epoque
by Sally Norton. Published in the September/October 2016 issue of Finery. In the late 19th century Paris was a large, urbane city, but the neighborhood of Montmartre retained a village atmosphere; festivities and artists mixed, with pleasure and beauty as their values. In 1886, Edouard Marchand conceived a new entertainment for the Follies Bergere, the music hall revue. On 6 […]
Let It Go To Your Head!
by Danine Cozzens Langdell. Published in the March/April 2015 issue of Finery. If you long to don your finest Regency evening wear and step out on the dance floor, put Saturday, May 30, 2015, on your calendar. Our Sister Organization, The Bay Area English Regency Society puts on only three balls each year. This one takes inspiration from an event […]
Beatnik Fashion
Not every member of the Beat Generation wore a beret by Kali Pappas, First published for the September/October 2014 issue of Finery As any fan of the Beat Generation writers will tell you, there’s a chasmic difference between the beret-wearing, bongo-beating “beatnik” of popular imagination and the people who created and lived the Beat philosophy in the 1940s, 50s, and […]
Paraphernalia for the Regency Man
Going beyond hat and gloves for the serious reenactor by Brian Cushing, First Published for the May/June 2014 issue of Finery While modern eyes view the Regency man as elegant and refined, contemporary conservative eyes looking on him would have perceived him as anything but. The wardrobe of some dandies like Beau Brummel were plain and rooted in those requiring […]
English, French, and Burgundian Women’s Bonnets in the 15th Century
One costumer’s exploration and recreation of historical headwear by Cynthia Barnes, First published for the March/April 2014 issue of Finery Before the heavily wired and beaded hoods so familiar from the portraits of Queens Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, there were softer versions. As seen in manuscripts, these hoods adorned the heads of women of various social levels, be […]
Bra Support Comes of Age: The history of the bra, 1920-1930 *
by Carol Wood, First published for the November/December 2013 issue of Finery “The history of the chest is as much about its suppression as it is about its augmentation” Harold Koda Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed Underwear and outerwear tag team change and for the brassiere this is no exception. Women’s under-fashion evolved from the constraining corset to the flapper’s […]
Book review: Seventeenth Century Women’s Dress Patterns vol. 2, Jenny Tiramani and Susan North, editors
by Sahrye Cohen, First published for the July/August 2013 issue of Finery Book two of Seventeenth-Century Women’s Dress Patterns, edited by Susan North and Jenny Tiramani, continues the same meticulous documentation and fantastically detailed x-rays and photographs as book one. This volume contains an open gown, jackets, busks, linen bands and eighteen pages detailing the construction of a pair of […]
Japonisme or Not?
by Sandy Vrooman, First published for the March/April 2013 issue of Finery When trying to trace the influences of one culture to another, where does one start? In the case of Oriental influences on western fashion, we could go back to Marco Polo’s travels and the introduction of silk to European royalty; the flat Chinese fans used at Versailles, and […]
The 1870s Year by Year
by Judith Hollenberger Dunlap, First published for the January/February 2013 issue of Finery The decade of 1870-1879 included drastic changes of silhouette in women’s clothing. The large elliptical hoop of the late 1860s was pushed back into a bustle, which was quickly dropped for a form fitting ‘natural’ shape. Natural in name only, as it was achieved by lengthening the […]
