{reasonable request}

This year for my birthday, i'm not asking for much. In fact i'm asking for nothing at all, save this one, tiny, thing. A lilac pony please.

*pagan tableaux*

Now i'm not really someone who's all mad about weddings. Most wedding blogs highly irritate me, except for this tumblr which has proven to be quite intriguing {and where i have sourced these images}. And yet, i'm beginning to see that they're a rather good outlet for creating marvelous tableaux - especially the ones outside. I like that it's all at the mercy of the elements, and no one can really out-style nature herself - not even the efforts below. Twinkling lights and rough tables and chairs - and then the million details that make things truly special. And small. Otherwise i think i'd elope - which to me sounds rather romantic and fun! The other option is to take over a ruined abbey - preferably in the hills overlooking the sea on a warm still evening - and bedeck it in flowers and lights and bunting and a bonfire and wallah! A perfectly pagan wedding. Not that i'm having one of course... but if I did, my bridesmaids would wear pale grey {tease me not alice speak} and hold bunches of yellow and pink flowers.

* A setting for faeries *

{wise musings}

I'm procrastinating. I'm very much supposed to be working {it's a shame, i used to call it drawing}, but i can't seem to peel myself away from all this browsing i've been up to. Mary Ruffle has a very, very romantic, selective and charming collection of charming images. These three aren't exactly indicative of her moodboard tumblr, but i really liked the messages. Especially the first one, which i have been trying to practice more lately. Whilst an eye for detail is a blessing, it can quickly become nit-picking - an activity that does not have good associations. As for the one below - you know how i feel about cake = love. Butter biscuits are even better! And the last, well, what a good idea. Hope you agree.

*happy b day*

Portrait by Alen MacWeeney

I've just gotten home from seeing my dear grannie Henrietta, who's birthday it is today! I dropped by unannounced with flowers, and found her in checkey pyjamas having coffee in her lovely pale pink mews house. Isn't she beautiful? Happy birthday! x x x

{cottage industry}

I just re-read an old post, and notices a comment at the end about J. Morgan Puett from lovely Charlotte! Thanks for the link - I'd seen images from Mildred's Lane, but I wasn't aware of the extent of Morgan's work, and here's a fascinating excerpt from her artist's statement:

In 1984 I was attempting to research detailed aspects of working people's clothing from 1900-1930 in the costume archives of the Metropolitan Museum, and I was told that no specimens of these clothes survived. The actual reason for this was a shock to me – the clothes had been worn to dust, altered, patched, turned into quilts, chair backs, and curtains, passed down, and eventually used as rags. It was the fact that everything that was part of early vernacular culture was constantly being re-used, re-shaped, and re-worked – in a continuous act of invention that permanently shaped my practice. Categories shifted – clothing became furniture became architecture and vice versa – this changed my thinking about material culture and the inherent fluid nature of things. I realized that these histories and practices needed to not only be preserved and represented in museu

ms but also activated in contemporary public life.

I can't think of a more interesting, relevant attitude to working with our environment.

The images below are from a project Puett collaborated on entitled 'Cottage Industry': In Cottage Industry Puett draws from a deep local rootedness of history and imagery to evoke, through textiles, stories of feminine pursuits at home, women's work and roles, and industrial sites of exploitation. For this project she takes female garments through making and through history -- from designing to dyeing to sewing to marketing, from the 18th century to the present -- employing extensive research and extended collaborations with artists and others from the city and region.

Who wouldn't create something wonderful in this space?

merci *beaucoup*

Just wanted to say thank you to the lovely Anne-Christine of Le Divan Fumoir Bohemien for posting my dress on her delightful blog. I puffed out my chest with pride when I saw it, because Le Divan was one of the very first blogs that I truly fell for about four years ago. I had just started my studies in costume while I was living in Rome, and our school had such a tiny library that blogland was a dream come true! I trawled through all the archives and found so many wonderful images and stories to play with, and many have inspired my moodboards and ideas. In fact, several of the textiles posts made their way into the costume that has been posted, including the heart-breakingly beautiful works of Rosalind Wyatt. So not only a big thank you for posting my humble dress, but also for having unwittingly inspired me all these years. Un bisou!

expired in a {cloud}

For two days in March, the Thames Tunnel was opened to pedestrians for the last time in the foreseeable future. A friend happened to have one spare, so along I went and discovered the 8th wonder of the world for myself.

One of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first major engineering projects, the tunnel was designed to link London's biggest docks so that cargo could be carried back and forth by cart, instead of by boat. However it was mainly used by pedestrians, and later, in attempts to revise it's notorious reputation as a hide-out for thieves and vagabonds, it saw many Victorian fairs and entertainments. As described by an American traveller in 1851:

And thus you go down — down — to the bottom of the shaft eighty feet... Arrived at the bottom, you find yourself in... a round room, with marble floor, fifty feet in diameter. There are alcoves near the walls in which are all sorts of contrivances to get your money, from Egyptian necromancers and fortune-tellers to dancing monkeys. The room is lighted with gas, and is brilliant.

During it's construction, there were many a flood. One such killed six workers, and Isambard himself was carried along down the tunnel and spat out the shaft at the other end! But perhaps the most tragic and poetic image that I took from my visit to the tunnel was the story of the songbirds. Hung in cages, they would trill and sing at the forefront of the work. If ever they fell silent the workers would attempt an escape, knowing that most likely the birdie had expired in a cloud of methane. These would catch alight from the gas lamps and form a bloom of fire that would chase them down the tunnel and up the shaft. The workers encountered the forces of water, fire, earth and air, little songbirds bordering the unknown.

{fit for a sorceress}

Sidonia Von Bork

I recently came upon this painting of Sidonia Von Bork by Burne-Jones, and of course, my mind immediately retraced back to that dress from Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Or I should say, Colleen Atwood's dress who drew references from these stunning pre-raphaelite paintings. Sidonia is currently part of the Tate collections, and their blurb reads:

"Sidonia von Bork is the central character in Wilhelm Meinhold's gothic romance 'Sidonia the Sorceress'. The novel is set in sixteenth-century Pomerania and chronicles the crimes of the evil Sidonia, whose beauty captivates all who see her. She is

shown here at the court of the dowager Duchess of Wolgast, one of the early intrigues in a career that leads to her execution as a witch".

I mean, what a dress for an aristocratic witch! But the real designer here is Giulio Romano who designed the original portrait of Isabella d'Este, c.1531(below). It truly is an inspired dress, but it is also more than that; the women who wear them each possess a certain strength, an innate witchiness. This dress is a character unto itself, without overshadowing the wearer. I first saw Sleepy Hollow when I was just 11 years old, and this dress has stayed with me ever since.

Isabella D'Este

Miranda Richardson as Lady Van Tassel

Venetian Ladies Listening to the Serenade by Frank Cadogan-Cowper

Vanity by Frank Cadogan-Cowper

*tasty*

Another costume fantasy, this time made and designed by Elizabeth Richards based on the given title "taste". It was paraded at the National Gallery last summer, but Lizzie decided to have a little shoot this afternoon at my place which was a little more in keeping with the character... and these are some of my photos, stolen inbetween Lizzie's far more professional ones with a film camera and tripod. It was so much fun to arrange all the cakes and strawberries, and Alice Speak, the lovely model, did a wonderful job at embodying her inner buxom beauty. Let the feast begin!

{the kensington palace project}

And here's how I made it! This is the workbook I have to compile for my course, including all the samples and descriptions of how I made the costume. It's taken three times as long as it should have, but it was so much fun to do a bit of scrap-booking and have a break from all the designing we've been doing lately. I'm also in the middle of building a website, so more on that soon!

Patterns blocks...

Samples of the raw fabrics i used. Only six! including what i used on the crown!

These were taken at the college show in february, where we had to present a costume at a wearable stage. As you can see, it was no where near finished, but i'm still quite fond of the simpler, plain linen version. Especially the skeleton crown where you can actually see my spot welding work!

Screen printing the meters and meters of linen...

I altered a pair of vintage white kid gloves, and then embroidered into them with a contrasting grey running stitch.

The shoes were so much fun! i bought a pair of white silk wedding shoes on ebay for £3.50 which were consequently tea-stained, sprayed and glued. The tea didn't really do anything, as i couldn't leave them in for very long with out melting the glue that's holding them together! So i sprayed them, then covered them in distressed metallic organza.

And the final result in the palace gardens...