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…

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.

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!

Blue Watery Masquerade Ball Gown with Satin Blue Underskirt and Crystals

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So recently, I got an e-mail from Diana asking if I could draw a dress for a roleplay she was taking part in. I went through and read the scenario, and Diana’s character Leslie is a human spy in a magical world who has to infiltrate a masquerade ball attended by aristocrats. So I thought this was a fun challenge: what sort of thing might a spy wear to such a ball? It’s dead easy to make a gown that says “hey everyone, look at me!” or one that says “I am a Woman of Mystery” but one that looks expensive and magical enough that no one questions its wearer’s right to be there, yet isn’t so noticeable that everyone winds up talking about her… fun. I ended up going with blue, a rich but soothing color, and an overskirt with fabric like shimmering water and seafoam, studded with crystals — although I don’t really think the crystals worked out too well. Oh well. Diana, I hope you like it anyways, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes!

The poll is yet ongoing…

Black and Pink Lacy Babydoll Dress with Black Gloves and Striped Stockings inspired by Misa Amane from Death Note

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Brian and I are watching Death Note on Hulu these days. I watch some anime, but mostly only when I’m intensely studying Japanese, so it’s been a while since I’ve watched any just for the sake of watching it. I think Misa is the first “bubbly moron” type of anime character that I’ve ever liked, although goodness knows I’ve seen enough of them. There’s just something about the way she so blithely screws up Light’s game that I enjoy, and I really do feel sorry for her because the way he deals with her must be painful on some level, so she can talk about herself in the third person all she wants and I don’t mind.

This isn’t directly from any of the outfits that she wears, but since she has a sort of sexy goth style (I’m sure there’s a name and a subculture for it) I thought this would be the kind of outfit she would like. My shipment of new colored pencils came today — a couple of the pink ones make an appearance in this outfit, and the lace is thanks to Verithin Cool Grey 70%. The gloves aren’t proper gloves, but come to a point over the hand, so take care when cutting them out.

One more day for this poll…

1814 White Lace Trimmed Regency Gown with Sheer Overskirt and Pink Shawl from Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Persuasion was one of the audiobooks I listened to earlier this year (again, from Librivox); it’s set starting in 1814, but the time, rather than the book, influenced this dress. Since it’s white, it’s probably considered too young a color for the book’s heroine, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a pure white Regency gown and it sure was fun to draw. This one might as well be titled “Liana Has A New Pencil Sharpener,” really. My old one was probably around eight years old, no wonder it took about two minutes and lots of coaxing to get a point inferior to the ones my new sharpener produces in seconds. It shows, too. Look forwards to a lot of lace in whatever I do next.

I looked at so many sites when thinking about how this dress should be, I can’t list them all, but pemberley.com, the Regency Fashion Page and Jessamyn’s Regency Costume Companion are the ones I noted down for later, so if you have any interest in Regency fashion please take a look at them.

We’re reaching the end of the Halloween costume polls. You haven’t forgotten about them already, have you?

Min’s Royal Blue Pillbox Hat with 1960s Dress via Dress A Day

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I found Min’s blog when she linked to me a while back, and I’ve quite enjoyed perusing her charming vintage hat collection since then. (It’s called “It’s Raining Min,” which always makes me think of warriors falling off a cliff…) I really liked this royal blue pillbox, but what to partner it with? The answer came in a recent A Dress A Day post in which the weird poses of the models were discussed at length. But the outfit, a slim 1960s dress, was cute, so I borrowed the look to go with the hat, and voilà.

Blue and White Convertible-Sleeved Evening Dress From “In the Year 2000: Clothing of the Future”

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Erin at A Dress A Day linked to this video from the 1930s, “In The Year 2000: Clothing Of The Future” and, well, convertible sleeves FTW. Or, to quote the video, “One idea is a dress that can be adapted for morning, afternoon or evening. It’s the sleeves what does it!” So the white part is actually the inside of the sleeve, secured by the little silver hangy thing at the top and threaded underneath the belt. You’ll see if you watch the video a couple of times. We didn’t really get a good look at the skirt, and I think the original is a little fuller, but what the heck, I lived through the year 2000, I can take some liberties.

The rest of the video, which promises to show us “what Eve will look like in AD 2000,” is well worth a watch, too. I wish we got a better look at the aluminum dress…

Oh, and Go Fug Yourself is holding the Fug Madness tournament soon, so if you have a high tolerance for fugly, don’t forget to vote. I predict at least one paperdoll will come from the contest. (I’m not so sure they’ve got room to talk with those horrendous American Apparel dress ads on their site, but I guess money is money. Ooh, I hope that doesn’t show up in my ads now…)

Madame Tutli-Putli’s Dress from the 2007 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts

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Brian and I went the other day to see the 2007 Oscar nominated animated short films at the Michigan Theater. This outfit here is Madame Tutli-Putli, from the short named after her, alternately titled by Brian “the Silent Hill short” for its surreal, creepy atmosphere. The way the short was produced was stunning (and eerie, with those human eyes tracked on the puppets) but the content seemed to be trying too hard to be deep. Yes, she’s timid, yes she’s got all that “baggage,” yes, it’s depicting an acceptance of death, but the aliens removing livers was a little beyond me. (And no, I don’t think it was a literal account of an organ-harvesting ring, as I’ve read elsewhere…)

My favorite one was My Love, followed by Even Pigeons Go To Heaven.

Margaret Hale’s White Gown from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South

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All we know about the gown from the book is that it is white silk and adorned with coral (two pins in her hair, her sleeves looped up with coral strings, and a coral necklace.) There’s no firm date given for the events of the book, but I’m dating this gown to 1852, based on this page, which makes it sound as if the strike in the book was based on the historical strike at Preston in 1853, a year before the book began to be serialized. Then, this was the gown that Margaret also wore for her cousin’s wedding, which was at the beginning of the book. It’s an inconvenient date — right there between the Regency gowns and the hoopskirt at its height. I used this page for reference, mostly.

It may sound like the book is some sort of Civil War drama, but it refers instead to the differences between the slow-paced farming communities of the south of England and the upstart industrial cities of the north. For this reason I found it a rather odd book somehow; it starts off with a wedding, a silly mother, a pastor father, a suitor for Margaret and a good bit of walking, gardening and drawing, and we Jane Austen fans think “Oh, I know where this is going.”

(Unrelated: while chatting with a woman working at the bookstore the other day, she told us she had been talking to someone who lamented, in all seriousness, that Jane Austen hadn’t written anything lately.)

But just as the reader is getting acquainted with Helstone and its inhabitants and charms, there’s a crisis: Margaret’s father loses his faith in some way, enough that he feels that he must renounce his living and find other employment. This revelation is never truly explored in the book, as Margaret seems rather afraid to ask for any more details, and instead throws herself into the mundane details needed to keep the family together. So they move to Milton, a factory town, and her father becomes a private tutor. And all of a sudden, this book which had seemed to promise a lightly romantic comedy of manners, brings in questions of religious faith, chapters upon chapters of class conflict, lingering illness, murder, deception, lies, grave misunderstandings and lots and lots of death. (And why the one character I would have liked to see die never quite made it there, I have no idea.) This is all separate from the story of Margaret’s love interest, which is its own little torment; they must spend thirty chapters thinking of each other, misunderstanding each other, and being miserable, before it is all finally resolved in the last page of the book.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, even with the heaps of melodrama, as Margaret herself is a fascinating and admirable heroine, and the depiction of the class conflict is easily more important than the romance. The strike, the union and the millowners are all treated evenly and sympathetically, and the inclusion of such themes makes the novel so unique.