Fashion Trends

In my teens I used to make sketches of different dress styles and then I used to make fancy gowns for my Barbie dolls even though I was challenged by not having a lot of good material.  I was never a very good seamstress but I must have inherited some of my mother’s sense of style since I was interested in clothes.

       There is no question that a woman feels 100% better about herself when she knows she is dressed exquisitely.  Even in the right jeans, with a nice shirt and trim jacket, she can be a knockout.  But there is something wonderful about a truly nice dress with all the glitz and glamour that makes a woman look like a goddess.  Fashionistas everywhere pour over the magazines after Oscar night to see the celebrity gowns and right now I bet many are waiting for the next season of Downton Abbey to see the gowns Mary  will be wearing.

       In grade 6 I had to make an 18^th century gown for my Barbie as a special history project.  Little did my teacher know that I had already pored over a calendar of fashions which my mother had received in our Christmas parcel a year before.  I was already well versed in the fashion of different eras.  I had learned that a petticoat was not a coat at all but an underskirt.  I knew what pantalets were and I had been exposed at a tender age to the design of a corset (my grandmother wore one).  The following year my parents began purchasing the Knowledge Encyclopaedias from the grocery store and then I was truly in love with the different centuries fashions.

       My favorites include Eleanor of Aquitaine’s period (12^th century); the Renaissance; Antebellum South’s extravagance; the Roaring 20’s and today’s gowns. Enjoy these plates.