Set Life. Worked with some greats on a Billy the Kid Discovery Channel documentary that’ll air in early 2025-ish. In my happy place. Film work has begun to pick up a little and yesterday I provided costume support to small production filmed on a movie ranch not too far from the Atelier. Below are a few views:
Here’s the exterior- it’s actually pretty small and even smaller when you include the cast and crew…
The drive in…and as usual, phone and wifi reception are poor to non-existent…
This is a truly special gown, I used this portrait for inspiration. Days of intense drafting, pleating, old silks, and antique lace later, I get to see it in motion on the big screen in: The Memoirs of Madam Moustache at the Wild Bunch Film Festival. And the finished product:
Fiona approves!
In the West, an honest dusty hem makes everything right…
In a previous post, we looked at a paisley house dress/tea gown from the mid-1890s and noted that the paisley shawls that were a staple of 1850s-60s fashion would up being re-purposed into dresses during the 1870s, 80s, and even 90s. Here’s one such example with this c. 1885-89 tea gown.
Tea Gown, c. 1885-1889; Kent State University Museum; 1995.017.0016
Although the design makes it look like there’s a robe over a separate under-dress, it’s really all a one-piece construction.
And the back is pretty incredible:
Of course, without physically inspecting it, it’s difficult to tell how exactly the paisley shawl might have been incorporated (or if a shawl was actually used versus yardage) but it is somewhat logical given the extensive use of a solid color as an underlayer. The investigation continues… 😎
Time to go kick up a little dust in a few weeks. 🙂