Does anyone want to see the presentation I made on what historical fashion trends we should bring back and which should burn in hell I made for a PowerPoint party?

The people have spoken

In conclusion: Wear what you want and be funky

{ID - 11 images 1 - a screenshot of 4 notes 2-11 - the mentioned presentation; each slide has photos showing examples of the fashion, alongside the pros and cons of each and then a conclusion. Title slide - “What historical fashion trends we should bring back and which should {caps to end} burn in hell” slide 1 - The Hoop Skirt; pros: you could hide so many things under there, air conditioning unit, automatic social distancing, yes you can go to the toilet in it, it swish real nice; cons: hard to do parkour in, hard to do the do-si-do, might remind you of the confederate civil war recreation people; conclusion, not for daily use, but good for when you feel extra slide 2 - The Calash Bonnet; pros: it’s like a shed on your head. Keeps the rain off you, helps you assert dominance, cons: can’t tilt your head or might fall over, can’t tell when someone is coming at you from the side, impractical for combat, it’s ugly, conclusion, why did the historical recreationist I follow on instagram decide to bring another one of these into the world slide 3 - The Codpiece ; pros: might help contain syphillis?, protects ye squishy parts. theoretically, it made senses originally when men had any sense of modesty back in the good ol 14th century, gives you a clear target to kick, cons: it’s gross and ugly, i don’t want to see your worm, doesn’t even look like it protects you, represents sin, conclusion, i never want to look at one of these again slide 4 - a Frick ton of petticoasts; pros: keeps you warm, you kind of feel like an onion, poofy skirt, cons: if it’s hot out there you just have to suffer, the silhouette looks kinda sad, weighs you down!, can’t fight in it unless you figure out how to suffocate someone in all that fabric, conclusion, just wear a hoop skirt instead slide 5 - pumpkin pants; pros: poofy and funky, makes you look thicc?, you can 100% hide stuff in there, show off your leggy, cons: usually accompanied by the codpiece, conclusion, as long as the codpiece isn’t with it it’s pretty cool slide 6 - 18th Century Men’s Coats; pros: gives men the option to look just as fancy as the ladies, very pretty, gives you extra energy for the revolution, cons: can’t really have big pockets in them, conclusion, this is when men’s fashion peaked slide 6 - Huge McFreaking Pockets; pros: you can fit a whole loaf of bread in there, you can fit a whole puppy or like multiple kittens, also good for crime, cons: idk you suck and hate having portable storage space?, conclusion, {all caps} Fuck Yeah slide 7 - The Top Hat; pros: makes you look taller, good for crime, can hide things in there, a reminder of muppet’s A Christmas Carol, cons: makes you look taller, hard to keep it on your head when you’re running from the cops with those stolen goods you hid in your hat, conclusion, better places to hide stolen goods in slide 8 - cloaks; pros: they look kickass, can look majestic, mysterious or both, you can fit so many goddamn pockets in there!!!, very warm, keeps rain off entire body, cons: can be a little harder to show off your awesome outfit underneath, sometimes dogs will be confused by you, conclusion, I will bring back cloaks myself if i have to /end ID}

@alexandriapaige​

You’re right! It definitely looks a bit big on Zuko, in my opinion. Most of the beizi coats I’ve seen go down to the knees or mid-calf, at longest. Zuko’s coat goes all the way down to his ankles, which leads me to think it might be a hand me down. And because I love to aim straight for the heart, I’m going to say it was Lu Ten’s.

Zuko got banished when he was 13, probably before he really hit his teenage growth spurt. Meaning that whatever clothing he brought with him when he began his search for the Avatar were probably too small for him within a year. He has to carefully budget his funds to account for his crew, supplies, and ship maintenance. And, knowing Zuko, whatever money he has leftover is probably going towards buying extra protein so he can have the gains to become the crazy swole Zuko that fought Zhao.

So Iroh steps in and decides to give him Lu Ten’s old clothing. As these are clothes meant for a grown man, they’re a little loose on Zuko. But Zuko doesn’t complain. He quietly accepts the gifts. It really doesn’t need to be said what this act must represent for Iroh. Besides, Zuko’s doesn’t have time to get caught up in excess sentimentality.

At least, that’s what Zuko tells himself.

[Image description: screenshot of comment by alexandriapaige: “Is that just the style, or is that coat a little…big for Zuko? I need to know Immediately if there’s textual support for Zuko doing the whole ‘you’ll grow into it’ cash strapped thing during his banishment. Brb while I googled image this.”]

Ow ow ow awww ow

Oh gosh. But that must mean… Iroh brought Lu Ten’s old clothes with him when he first went with Zuko into exile. Maybe he knew or suspected they would be out there for years without much support and always intended them for Zuko in the course of time, or maybe he just brought some of Lu Ten’s old things for comfort and then when Zuko grew out of his current garb pressed them on him.

Either way, ouch.

[Image 1: The Girl with the Pearl Earring. But she's a Chinese girl in Han dynasty fashion.

Image 2: zoom out to appreciate her outfit. /End description.]

I noticed a lot of people in the tags on the court panniers post talking how very flat the profile was from the side

In the interests of accuracy, panniers weren’t ALWAYS that flat front-to-back. The link on the reblog states,  

Here is a picture of a dress from 1778 with much more moderate panniers (not the enormous court panniers), as seen from the side:

You can see that even without the overskirt in the back, the silhouette is much rounder from the side.

Likewise, here’s a ‘robe volante’ from the 1730s:

Three Tips for Writing a Historically Accurate Character

1. Don’t go too far with dialogue. Even though different eras had different popular phrases or slang words, adding too many could make it difficult to read. You don’t want someone to have to google every other word. 

2. Make sure you know the year you’re going for exactly. Doing research on the entirety of the 40s could lead to some pretty mixed results. (After all, a lot can happen in 10 years.)

3. Do research on the clothing style different classes or areas might use. Someone from 1967 living in Europe would dress differently to someone in America. 

today’s friendly reminder that CORSETS WERE NOT ANTI-FEMINIST TORTURE DEVICES. They were structural garments that supported the back, lifted the bewbies, and made the rest of a lady’s clothes fit right. Tight-lacing was something that only upper-class people did, and they didn’t even do it that often. Corsets were basically just bras! And a lot of the time, they were more comfortable than modern bras because they were made for each woman based on her individual measurements! Plus-size women AND skinny women wore corsets just like all body types wear bras!! Victorian men and the stories written by them are what taught us to hate them!! They!!! Are!!! Not!!! Torture devices!!!

let’s not forget the tacky patterns, too

oh yeah

oh fuck yeah

(TELL ME that last one isn’t a steampunk look. just try and tell me)

yes! thank you, these are EXACTLY what i meant. tomorrow I’ll take a picture of the bafflingly tacky goldenrod-and-maroon gown I’ve got at the shop

also

this is wise, and correct.

This is 100% true.

Oh no, no those are tasteful compared to what wild color shenanigans the 19th century got up to.  Most of them being mid-century are only ~2 colors excepting the plaid.  By the 1890s, five colors per dress was the fashion.  They…didn’t all coordinate the way we would.  

PUMPKIN WORTH

I have seen mid-century dresses in electric blue.  Barbie pink

Black with photo-realistic brocade oranges.  Royal purple with GIANT POLKA DOTS.

Hey hey did you know lime green and lavender was a favorite color combo in 1895?

This one is not so much tacky as…vibrant

Okay at ~1903 it’s not really Victorian but I love the melting ice cream explosion look of it

This dress has faded but it would have originally been a quite eye-catching shade of violet.

Not that past eras were any less fond of colors even if they weren’t artificial dyes.  I’ve seen canary yellow Regency dresses and an 18th century man’s coat in turquoise velvet printed with leopard spots.  Steampunk isn’t really Victorian so much as it is ‘drapery store vomited on a sexy colorblind school marm’

Et le piece de resistance…

Yes, those orange blocks are outlined in green chenille fringe.

brb, saving that green one to my ‘Malfoy estate sale’ pinterest board

Steampunk isn’t really Victorian so much as it is ‘drapery store vomited on a sexy colorblind school marm’

Pair a brightass fushia dress with a top hat and gears you cowards

MORE PUMPKIN ORANGE AND FRINGE YOU COWARDS

If you’re not using blood red and forty pounds of lace and trim what the fuck are you even playing at

The Pragmatic Costumer calls this “The Hot Mess Dress.” It dates from around 1878. They say: “This dress has more trims than my entire collection of detash combined (detash or destash means all the little bits, pieces, and leftovers from crafting something)! On the outside alone I spot: black lace, bi-colored sandy-brown/cornflower-blue ruffles, tawny velvet, cream silk, beaded netting, cream lace, ribbon bows, ribbon rosettes, cornflower-blue buttons, and that fluffy lace collar.  For even more trim-tastic fun and draping pandemonium, here’s a shot of the back:”

The Pragmatic Costumer: “Trims were all the rage in the mid 1870s and 1880s, and this dress is raging harder, faster, and more extravagantly than most.”

And here’s a Worth tea gown from 1895. This really needs to be worn by a mad scientist. Especially one interested in fish.

This post has been picking up speed again lately, so I want to take this opportunity to once more encourage steampunk costumers to think less ‘gears and brown’ and more ‘Mrs. Vanderbilt’s electric light gown.’

This is why it rubs me the wrong way when people say stuff like “oh, the Catholics are homophobic and yet look at their clergy, wearing dresses.” Like there are plenty of actual things to criticize, and you go for “they’re wearing draaaggg lol?” It just feels really historically ignorant?

I feel like the dark/light academia community doesn’t appreciate Bernadette Banner enough. Like? Why?? (Now, I might be biased because I have a crush on her, but I still stand by my statement.) Reasons y’all should acknowledge her as a dark (more so light, but whatever) academia icon include:

- Her whole vibe is late Victorian/Edwardian lady

- She is interested in history and literature

- She has done historically accurate reconstructions of clothes from the medieval era to the Edwardian era

-Does a lot of in depth research for reconstruction projects (with primary sources and v aesthetic libraries)

-She is teaching herself old English

-Big librarian energy

- The aesthetiiicccc

Her YouTube channel (she is a YouTuber, if I didn’t mention that earlier) is wonderful and mostly about historical dress which might sound boring if you’re not into sewing, but she is just so lovely that it might be enjoyable to watch nonetheless. Please I am begging you, appreciate Bernadette Banner for the dark/light academia icon she should be.

This has been a psa from me.

You’re welcome

Remember Anklets? These Are Better.

If you lived through the 1970s as a young woman, you may have worn a chain anklet, and the big question then was: do you wear it inside or outside of your pantyhose. The latter sounds very odd and looked weird, but it did prevent you from losing it if the clasp unhooked, as mine did. These were chains, and sometimes had a little charm on them, so they pale in comparison to these enameled silver anklets from the 19th Century, part of a recent, not closed exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago called, “Adornment: Jewelry of South Asia’s Nomadic Cultures.” This piece was created and worn, the curators think, by the Jat people of Sindh Province in Pakistan. 

As nomadic people, they did not carry a lot of belongings, according to the curators, but ornamental jewelry often had meaning in its designs, including marks of wealth, tribe, spiritual beliefs, and culture. Clearly, as silver, these anklets signaled wealth on one level. Economic change, including the loss of lands and industrialization, meant the jewelry changed too. People of these nomadic cultures now buy bangles made in factories instead of this kind of artisanal jewels.

This show it closed, but the Art Institute is going to have a dress textiles exhibition in March, for more info go here: https://www.artic.edu/

So Chinese and Vietnamese New Year is coming up. Starting on the 31st of January. :) Was browsing through clothing and yeah, this sheet pretty much sums up the eras and looks of Chinese and Vietnamese fashion. <3 恭喜发财, 新年快乐, 新年如意, and  Chúc Mừng Nǎm Mới!!! ^0^ Happy New Year everyone!

From annual trips to local museums, Russian Museum of Ethnography and The State Historical Museum of Russia this time, featuring: Novgorodian Rus X-XII                                               Mordva-moksha XIX Yaroslavl Lands X-XIII                                                 Turkestan XIX Emirate of Bukhara XIX                                               Latvia XX Tobolsk for the peoples of Siberia  XVII

Reigning Men

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let’s not forget the tacky patterns, too

oh yeah

oh fuck yeah

(TELL ME that last one isn’t a steampunk look. just try and tell me)

yes! thank you, these are EXACTLY what i meant. tomorrow I’ll take a picture of the bafflingly tacky goldenrod-and-maroon gown I’ve got at the shop

also

this is wise, and correct.

This is 100% true.

Oh no, no those are tasteful compared to what wild color shenanigans the 19th century got up to.  Most of them being mid-century are only ~2 colors excepting the plaid.  By the 1890s, five colors per dress was the fashion.  They…didn’t all coordinate the way we would.  

PUMPKIN WORTH

I have seen mid-century dresses in electric blue.  Barbie pink

Black with photo-realistic brocade oranges.  Royal purple with GIANT POLKA DOTS.

Hey hey did you know lime green and lavender was a favorite color combo in 1895?

This one is not so much tacky as…vibrant

Okay at ~1903 it’s not really Victorian but I love the melting ice cream explosion look of it

This dress has faded but it would have originally been a quite eye-catching shade of violet.

Not that past eras were any less fond of colors even if they weren’t artificial dyes.  I’ve seen canary yellow Regency dresses and an 18th century man’s coat in turquoise velvet printed with leopard spots.  Steampunk isn’t really Victorian so much as it is ‘drapery store vomited on a sexy colorblind school marm’

Et le piece de resistance…

Yes, those orange blocks are outlined in green chenille fringe.

brb, saving that green one to my ‘Malfoy estate sale’ pinterest board

What a trip.

Wow these photos are stunning

Some of these outfits are the raddest things I’ve ever seen.

Can we talk about the tights.

The existence of photos like these (and similar photos from the 70s and 80s and so on) makes me wonder yet again why current-day movies set in this time never seem to be able to get the hair and clothing right.

Okay, so the photo’s are really good, the outfits are on point, it’s very natural. but I’m going to call bullshit on that they are 1969 high school freshmen. For one they are all too beautiful to be high school freshman, of any era. And another the photography doesn’t look like photo’s from the 1960’s or 70’s, it’s much better. I’m no expert but, for the most part, i’m pretty sure black and what was still standard, and color photo’s didn’t look nearly this good unless they we’re taken by a professional camera, which I doubt many high school freshmen just had lying around.

Even a professional camera in this era wasn’t this good. It would still be more grainy. Just going by the surrounds and people in the background who obviously aren’t intended to be in the photo along with the hair, this is some modern college kid’s pop culture project.

I don’t know, considering I have owned a Leica M3 from 1959, and a few other cameras from that era, a Nikon F, a 1962 original Minolta Hi-Matic and others from that era , and have got awesome shots with those cameras which are all35mm cameras, I fucking rent a Hasselblad 500C/M, introduced in 1957 for paid jobs because with good reversal (slide) film you can get super sharp 120 megapixel shots for a fraction of the cost of renting a 40 or 50 megapixel medium format system like a H4D because the negative is 6 by 6 cm. Okay, going back to the photos, grainy film can be the result of a lot of factors, mainly people not exposing correctly, people over developing or “forcing” film so that you can shoot with less light, or the use of high speed film for low light, those are exterior shots in the sun, so it was probably not “fast” film, or pushed film, it would probably be Kodachrome or Kodacolor X. Kodachrome is a colour reversal film, or slide film, it means you get a positive right after processing and it is meant to be projected via optical means, it can be printed but the process is different, it usually has higher contrast and more saturated colours, and also a really FINE GRAIN, also Kodachrome was invented in 1935. 

This is Kodachrome in 1949, It doesn’t say the format, but considering its not blurry with all the moving objects it’s not a large format view camera (which have slow lenses and are not for action shots) It could be a 6 by 6 medium format but it’s not square, it probably is 35mm. I don’t think it’s Kodachrome because of the contrast and the saturation of the colours. 

Then Kodacolor X was invented in the 1950′s as a mean to make colour photography available for the general public, before that you could only get colour by using slide film which was much more expensive than B&W so it was used mainly by professional photographers. Kodacolor X is what is known as a Colour print film, it produces a negative, which is only viewable after printing it, and it’s way more cheaper than slides, but still even those “amateur” films can get pretty nice results for example: 

1968, it’s square so probably is a Rolleiflex TLR or other 6 by 6 camera. so not really a fair comparison, then maybe this one: 

It’s 35mm because of the format, and you can see that the grain is more noticeable but not terrible, it looks like the pictures the OP posted. And Kodacolor X while not as cheap as B&W was pretty used by amateur photographers, and if it was a “special” occasion, I don’t know the last day before summer or something like that it is plausible the photographer used colour print film. Finally to conclude the pictures aren’t that great composition wise, sure they are not terrible, but they are not good, all the subjects are at the center, there is too much air in some subjects are cut, or from their backs, this totally makes sense as a photo club kid taking colour pictures of their friends because it was a special occasion, or just wanted to test the film. Hell I don’t know how many times I have gone to take pictures of empty streets and buildings just to test a camera/film combination, and now that’s the most expensive way of taking pictures. 

I’m with @geekyastrophysicist on this one: there is no compelling reason to think those pics are fakes / not from the era stated. The grain and lens quality look very late ‘60s to me, comparing them to slides my Dad took around that time. Judging from the bokeh (and assuming 35mm!), a lot of the shots are at around f/4 which isn’t super-huge-aperture for back then.  To me, the colours look classic, creamy Kodachrome. They have that magic. There’s a reason Simon & Garfunkel wrote a song about it. 

I’m also slightly puzzled by the claims that modern digital tech is so much better than older tech. The truth is, digital imaging has been trying to equal film since the very first blocky images. We’ve had the megapixel race and now we’re in the dynamic bandwidth race. I took the below shot with a (then) very expensive digital camera and prime lens: 

But I was still trying to re-create the look of classic film photography, the warmth and colour gamut. 

Which is why a lot of photographers just simply cut out all the fuss and use film cameras with film when they want a film look. Neither digital nor film are ‘better,’ it’s a question of what best fits what you want to do. 

Friendly neighbourhood librarian here with a source! 

These photos were taken in 1969 for LIFE Magazine by professional photographer Arthur Schatz, many (but not all) at Beverly Hills High School in Southern California. Time Magazine ran a retrospective of the photo series a few years ago called Feelin’ Groovy: High School Fashion, 1969.

The girl in the headband is named Rosemary Shoong, and she apparently made the outfit herself (that being said, it’s described here as a “leather Indian dress” by which they mean Native, and I’m not sure if she herself was part native or not, so it may or not be appropriated). A few of the other girls are named, but not all of them. 

My favourite image though, isn’t of one of the students, but rather of the teacher, Sandy Brockman: 

That outfit. That headband.

ICONIC.

Update: I found they actual article in Google Books; they are definitely real high school students! https://books.google.com/books?id=CVEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=rosemary+shoong&source=bl&ots=fqIC__55CX&sig=JUrEammCB_SQwrGXL8rgULURaek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis0ILcyPLTAhVL6mMKHcc-CRsQ6AEISjAL#v=onepage&q=rosemary%20shoong&f=false

Bless you, research librarian!

Also, I would wear the fuck out of that ruffled yellow crop top!

I’m also reblogging for the facts about the whole range of film and the cameras that used it, and glad that it was thoroughly addressed by someone else because my eyes were still rolling too hard from reading the idea that the image quality was entirely due to the cameras used and not the film in those cameras

(every time I’ve reblogged this before was to point to the LIFE magazine source.)

Rereblogging for the photos and also because I will never stop being annoyed at the “I have no idea what I’m talking about but I’m pretty sure there was no color photography in the 70s” comment. Which, by the way, starts with “I’m going to call bullshit that these are freshman” when no one ever said they were - the original caption is “high school fashion.”

I knew they were real immediately, and not because of the film - because of the shoes.

Guys the reason you think old photos are ‘grainy’ or whatever is because you’re thinking of low-quality print reproductions in books and magazines.

not necessarily, the prints i have made with modern camera + modern film + modern chemicals all have a visible grain, especially enlarged to a standard 8x10 size. all film is going to have a grain, it’s just how the chemicals work

that grain will get exaggerated with lower quality reproductions, it’s true, but it’s still there even on the original negative, and visible even in high-quality prints in artbooks (i looked at a lot of those this past semester blah)

besides splurging on high-quality film you can minimize the graininess of your images with your choices for developing chemicals and technique, but you can’t get rid of it entirely unless you go digital- in which case you have to deal instead with pixel artifacts, and other challenges unique to the medium

that said yeah it’s not the camera that determines the graininess, it’s the film, and lol at the idea that cameras just weren’t that good back then- have you ever seen the market for vintage lenses?? those are some fine quality glass my friends, and the rest of the camera’s mechanics are more important for things like speed and reliability than the actual quality of the image captured

Oh absolutely the film grain matters i just really think that what people have in mind here as ‘old photos of bad quality’ are actually bad quality prints that they saw once.

in the late 1790s it was in style to wear earrings depicting the execution of louis xvi.

Recreated Tang-dynasty outfits based on cave paintings