Photoshoot day

Last Saturday a fellow doctoral student who is also a photographer invited me to model for her and another photographer. They chose some of my dresses that they wanted to photograph and I managed to smuggle in some dance poses as well :)

Here are some of their shots. All photos Suvi Korpi and Anni Ylkänen

Please be considerate and do not copy or repost the photos without permission!

                       

The parasol is a vintage item from the 1930s but it's so pretty that I couldn't resist!

 Photo: Suvi Korpi

Photo: Suvi Korpi

Photo: Suvi Korpi

Photo: Suvi Korpi

Photo: Suvi Korpi

The good old Courtois dress. I did better with the hair this time, though it's not perfect still. Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

I've made an evening bodice for the Courtois dress skirts. I'm especially happy with how well the hook and thread loop fastenings centre front work! I was sceptical and undecided about the fastenings for months and months, but decided on these because I wanted it photographed at this session. Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Some dance shots :) Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

Photo: Anni Ylkänen

The Courtois dress revisited

I recently made some additional underwear for the Courtois dress and today I finally took the time to photograph them. The new things are a little underbodice, natural form hoop skirt and a balayeuse hem frill for the skirt.

There are pictures, of course :)

The first layer. I'm very scandalous and don't wear the bloomers, mostly because I don't have a pair. Note to self: put on stockings and shoes before the corset...

The underbodice and the hoops. It looks ridiculous but is actually very useful. It keeps your legs clear of the mass of skirts and frills and general froufrou. I had misplaced the buttons intended for the centre front opening while I was sewing this so here the centre front is basted close. I mean to add the buttons later.

Playing the harp wearing this was VERY difficult.

The underbodice. I'm happy with the fit. Extant pieces seemed to have a longer hem or a basque, but I was short on fabric and time and chose to make a waist lenght version.

Petticoat. I'm not entirely happy with this, I might modify it in the future and ad some frills up the back of the hem.

The 1st skirt.

Cancan! Or showing off the balayeuse. I simply gathered two looooong strips of fabric and sewed  them in two tiers on the train part of the skirt.

The 2nd skirt.

And done!

Some period reading. I'm actually halfway through Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (also a period novel) but it's a bog standard paperback and not as photogenic as my Anna Karenina.

The underbodice back.

And the fronts. I made this entirely from stash, that's why the lace doesn't go all the way to the front....

The Courtois dress: Finished and photographed!

As you might remember, I finished the Courtois dress sometime in July, but because I've been busy and because we've had about the hottest summer in ages, I haven't got around photographing the dress and writing a post about it. Today, however, my friend had time to join me in a nearby park to help me photo my first finished late Victorian, natural form project.

The dress is based on a portrait by a French painter Gustave Courtois; in 1880 he painted Anne-Marie Dagnan, his father's cousin and the fiancée of his good friend. I fell in love with her dress and even though I had never dabbled with Victorian fashions before, I wanted to give it a try.

I took the dress pattern from The Fashions of the Gilded Age, Volume I by Frances Grimble. I modified the bodice fronts to match the portrait dress and took inspiration for the front closures from this extant dress. Also, I'm indebted to many of my readers for giving me advice and encouragement during the project; one of my friends even took the trouble to book a study appointment in the costume museum in Bath and photograph a dress from the same era for me! How nice is that?!

Under the dress I'm wearing my late Victorian corset (the pattern of which I took from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines), chemise and a petticoat. I think I might want to make a corset cover, a balayeuse for the train and possibly some natural form supportive garments for the skirts that were so expertly researched and produced by Festive Attyre.

That's all, really. I'm reasonably pleased with the ensemble, though there are things I'm still going to tweak. Also, there's the evening bodice to make!

Pictures? A word of warning, there are loads. A plethora, if you will. Not for the fainthearted :)

All the photos here by Suvi Saraste.

Practicing my regal wave. Apparently balconies make me feel very queenly.

A gentle breeze caressing my cheeks...

Graffitis, very interesting, my dears.

On the pier

The building with the tall chimneys is the local university, my current place of employment. It used to be a cotton mill from the 1850s to the 1950s.

A bit of unladylike galloping

So windy!