Ancient Roman Fashion History Week

This week in class, in a logical progression, we are studying Ancient Roman fashion history and that's the theme, of course, for this trend board that juxtaposes ancient Roman primary sources that indicate the most common depictions of the art and fashion of the vast reaching, long standing empire with current clothing choices that show hints of what we think of today as Ancient Roman inspired clothing.

 

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/template?id=517262

The role of the epic fail in creativity

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Evening dress (clipped to polyvore.com) by Callot Soeur  1918-19.

Yesterday I set out to create what has to be the easiest costume ever – really – the Greek Chiton.  I intended for this to be a re-purpose project and tried several different and interesting materials, none of which would do what I wanted.  Finally, I went to be last night in utter frustration and when I woke up this morning and began the business of my day, I realized I had actually draped a beautiful costume from a completely different era in time.  Instead of the simplistic Chiton I was trying to achieve I had somehow created a gown reminiscent of Callot Soeur in the mid-1920s. 

I’d been watching season three of Downton Abby and I think the time period was just stuck in my head and that anything I tried to create might have come out looking like something from season three of the show.  This experience has taught me something about the nature of inspiration and influence and that the “do-over” sometimes becomes the “do-instead”.

Nothing Ancient Greek about this drape, but it will be a beautiful prototype for a Downton Abby inspired tea party. 

So what is your favorite epic fail story that turned out OK for you as an artist or designer?

Egyptian Jewelry Resources

Here are two favorite books for research on Egyptian Jewelry.

This one is a particular favorite.

Ancient Egyptian Jewelry by Carol Andrews

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810926776
• ISBN-13: 978-0810926776 

Jewels of the Pharaohs: Egyptian Jewelry of the Dynastic Period by Cyril Aldred

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st Ballantine Books ed edition (1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345278194
• ISBN-13: 978-0345278197

As you can see from the publication dates of these books, we're due for an new book on the subject.

Welcome to Ancient Egyptian costume week!

Welcome to Ancient Egyptian costume week!

This week in my Fashion History I class, we are studying ancient Egyptian fashion.  One of our weekly assignments for this course is a trend board that visually illustrates how modern fashions have been influenced by previous eras.

Here I have used Polyvore to clip museum images and modern images creating a “user friendly” way for those of you who are not yet proficient with Photoshop (though you should learn to be competitive in the workplace) to be able to create boards for your own research and for class research.

What’s great about Polyvore is it keeps track of your source images and where they have come from, which is a big help for  researchers and students because it allows us to keep track of source citations and find the images and garments again when, and if, necessary.

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/template?id=502733

Stomacher Italian, early 18th century | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Stomacher Italian, early 18th century | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (clipped to polyvore.com)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Armor Garniture of George Clifford,...

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Armor Garniture of George Clifford,... (clipped to polyvore.com)

One of the most stunning examples of 16th century armor available to view in the United States is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) in New York. Made in approximately 1585 for George Clifford, Third Earl of Cumberland, it’s of steel, etched, blued and gilded and according to the MMA website “ is the best preserved, most extensive armor garniture from the Royal Workshops at Greenwich,”. (Koehly, Examiner)

Italian Renaissance Costume Research using Polyvore

This week in my Fashion History class we’re studying the Italian Renaissance and I've reviewed some projects with some perplexing information included.  For example, several students seem to believe that the Italian Renaissance took place in 1968.  Not a typo a genuine answer repeated several time over the last several semesters. I believe this has to do with the Franco Zeferelli film of Romeo and Juliet produced in 1968.  For those of you joining the story late, the Italian Renaissance is generally dated between 1420 and 1600.  So for today’s project I wanted to explore some resources that might help my students to gather information and submit their reports.  Specifically, I wanted to know if the online clipping and shopping tool, Polyvore, would work for historic image research projects.

What I did to test Polyvore for research viability was to reference the Metropolitan Museum of Art website to gather painting resources of women’s costumes from the Italian Renaissance period.  I downloaded the Polyvore clipping tool and I made a collage of painting images.  Not liking the original outcome – it was missing an appropriate background for the time period - I added a search for Italian Renaissance textiles and used a period proper textile image to set as the foundation on which to build the collage.  Though, not as robust as Photoshop the speed and ease of use make this a great informational gathering and display tool.

The Polyvore site keeps the proper attribution of where the pictures were found online, however, I lost those when I downloaded the collage to save on my computer.  Anyone using the collages for class research will have to find a way to print the attributions separately to hand in with collage projects.

Overall, though, I found this a great way to gather images for inspiration and illustrating research.  

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/template?id=495180