#sheer Gigot over-sleeves

[gogmstuff]

More pre-Victorian 1830s (from top to bottom) -

ca. 1830 Evening or wedding dress (location ?). From tumblr.com/andrayblue 1080X1350.

1831 Marquise Chasseloup-Laubat (probably Marie Augustine Antoinette Le Boucher des Fontaines) by Joseph-Désiré Court (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen - Rouen, Normandie, France). From their Web site' enlarged by half 845X1181.

1830-1832 María Cristina de Borbón, Queen of Spain by José de Madrazo y Aguado (Prado). From their Web site 1280X1745.

1832 Marie Franziska von Freytag by ? (Salzburg Museum  - Salzburg, Salzburgland, Austria). From tumblr.com/history-of-fashion 766X963.

1832 Amalie Klein by Friedrich von Amerling (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere - Wien, Austria). From tumblr.com/history-of-fashion; fixed spots & cracks throughout w Pshop 2893X3508.

1835 Illustration from La Mode by Paul Gavarni. From tumblr.com/clove-pinks 1650X2048.

1836 Marriage Portrait of Charlotte de Rothschild by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (Israel Museum - Jerusalem, Jerusalem District, Israel). From Google Art Project.

Lady with Pink Sash by Camille Joseph Etienne Roqueplan (Sotheby's - 29Jan22 auction Lot 703) 1583X2000.

[resplendentoutfit]

Fashions of the Early 1830s: Large Hats and Leg-o-Mutton Sleeves

I was obsessed with Victorian era fashion for way too long! Let's jump back a few years and take a look at what royals and high-society women were wearing from 1830 to about 1836.

Vincente López Portaña (Spanish, 1772–1850) • Maria Cristina de Bourbon, Queen of Spain (fourth wife of Fernando VII) • 1830 • Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

The style of the blue gown above is in keeping with Romantic era fashion, with its elbow-length puff sleeves with lace trim and pleated bodice. For formal attire, long gloves were worn.

The Maria Cristina de Bourbon portrait is of a royal subject, therefore the jewel-studded headpiece is especially grand, as is the bodice ornament and earrings. The feather was characteristic of the times – very large hats with feathers were in vogue, as well as large bonnets. The Spanish queen is wearing a lace mantila with her headpiece, which I assume is a symbol of her Spanish heritage.

The fabric of the queen's dress is extraordinarily elaborate, with all-over silver thread embroidery. The bodice on this and many early to mid 1830s dresses was called a bodice à la Sevigne, which was made up of a central boned band divided into horizontal folds of fabric.

Belts and wide ribbons around the waist were often featured on dresses of the early to mid 1830s.

The fashion from circa 1830 to 1835 was one of over-porportioned extravagance. Sleeves larger than were ever seen or since been, width at the shoulders, and dramatic hats and headpieces.

Hair too was over-the-top. Notice the perponderance of elaborate braids, coils, and curls in these images.

1830-34 • British • Printed Cotton Day Dress • Victoria and Albert Museum

One such dramatic feature of 1830s fashion was the pelerine, a lace covering that was worn over the shoulders. The cut of the neckline was already exagerated to emphasize width at the shoulders; adding a pelerine only added to that width as well further acting as more ornamentation to the outfit.

François-Joseph Navez (Belgian, 1787-1869) • Théodore Joseph Jonet and his two daughters • 1832 • Private collection

Sleeve style quickly evolved from simply puffy to Gigot or leg-o-mutton sleeves – a huge, billowy sheer sleeve over a smaller one, continuing with a tight-fitting long sleeve.

This flamboyance in sleeves was to suddenly come to an end around 1836. More about that in a future post, as I continue to flit willy-nilly along the fashion history timeline!

References:

• Fashion History Timeline: 1830-1839

• Wikipedia: 1830s in Western Fashion

• Wikipedia: Pelerene

• Mimi Mathews: The 1830s in Fashionable Gowns: A Visual Guide to the Decade

[isabellathelabel]

Isabella Gigot Sleeve Floral Trim Casual Jacket

Add a touch of sophistication to your wardrobe with the Isabella Gigot Sleeve Floral Trim Casual Jacket. Crafted with intricate floral trims and a sheer design, this elegant jacket is perfect for layering over any outfit. The leg-of-mutton sleeves and round neckline bring a vintage charm, while the apricot color adds warmth and subtlety to your look. Ideal for both casual and dressy occasions, this jacket effortlessly elevates your style.

[peremadeleine]

Droopy Sleeves and Tiny Bonnets: Watering Down the Romantic Aesthetic in BBC’s Les Mis

I wasn’t exactly blown away by the costumes in the BBC production of Les Mis, and Cosette’s in particular, cute as Ellie Bamber is, were thoroughly “just okay.” But I didn’t put much more thought into it...

Well, not until Gentleman Jack--set in the exact same time period--blew BBC’s Les Mis out of the water with its costume design. Then more recently, when I started researching the fashion of the early 1830s, all the ways in which poor Cosette’s costumes fell short became glaringly obvious.

Disclaimer: I am not as much of a stickler for historical accuracy in period drama costumes as this little essay is going to make me out as being. I’m not a Frock Flicks kind of gal; I just want to be entertained and look at pretty clothes. So as far as I’m concerned, as long as the basic silhouettes are there and the costumes are nice to look at, I’m there. (I find the wildly inaccurate costumes of The Tudors a lot more visually appealing than the ones in Wolf Hall. And everyone knows Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette was highly stylized, but those costumes are to die for and still embody the rococo aesthetic very well.)

That said, Cosette is a character who’s very invested in fashion, and the general look of the 1830s isn’t unknown to English productions, being the setting of Queen Victoria’s adolescence, Jane Eyre, Wives and Daughters, and many a Dickens adaptation among others.

So where did they go wrong?

Being honest, most of the Les Mis productions from the past two decades or so failed to put Cosette in high-fashion or even noteworthy costumes. Only the 2012 film for all the ways it failed her as a character hit it out of the park. Cosette gowns were damn near perfect--and they were actually pretty to boot! Unfortunately in the actual film you can’t even see the floral gown and you can barely see the blue one...thanks Tom Hooper.

The belts/buckles, the enormous sleeves, the delicate floral prints and embroidery, the lace collars...pat the costume designer on the back! (Her wedding dress was also on-point, but we’ll get to that.)

Claire Danes and Virginie Ledoyen had passable-and-sometimes-good costumes, too. Though Claire Danes’ were generally not very pretty, their overall silhouette was correct. Virginie Ledoyen gets a couple of knock-out, very period-appropriate gowns; the rest sort of fall into the nebulous “well, I guess you tried” category without being unattractive.

But the BBC production just...dropped the ball for reasons unknown.

Now, in the book Cosette overhears some ladies calling her “pretty but badly dressed.” She’s shocked, because she thinks she’s ugly but well-dressed. She then goes on a charming quest to become the best-dressed woman in Paris, and the BBC adaptation even has a scene where she goes to the seamstress. It’s really cute. Too bad that the dresses are...really not.

Here are some fashion plates from 1830-32.  Keep in mind that Cosette lives in Paris, of all places; she would be aware of what was and was not fashionable.

This is the height of Romantic fashion: giant (“gigot”) sleeves and bonnets, full skirts with hems at or just above the ankle, lace accents, silk stockings and slippers, elaborate hairdos. The 2012 costumes, again, capture this quite well. 

And even if the BBC designer had taken liberties and had fun while preserving the overall aesthetic--think what Sandy Powell did in Cinderella, set in roughly the same period--I wouldn’t be making this post. But there’s curiously little 1830s to be found in Cosette’s wardrobe at all.

I guess we should start with the BBC’s Good/Accurate Stuff. This coat Cosette wears is, apart from the deep fur-lined V-neck, almost a carbon copy of the extant coat on the right. And she has a bonnet!

Cosette’s best/most accurate dress is, naturally, the most difficult to see and has the least screentime of all her costumes:

From what I can tell, the sleeves, though delicate and sheer, are very full, as is the skirt, and the whole thing seems both pretty and en vogue...despite the questionable neckline. It’s also detailed--embroidery on the sleeves and with pleats (?) to create visual interest at the shoulders and on the bodice!

Here are a selection of other short-sleeved gowns from the period for comparison (both extant garments and costumes/reconstructions).

Tbh Ellie’s costume should be as stunning as the blue gown (far left) that an extra wore in Cinderella, but...maybe someday, in some Les Mis production, that gorgeous Sandy Powell creation will reappear. *sigh* (Virginie Ledoyen’s best Cosette gown is on the far right, btw.)

Anyway, that’s...that’s about it for the “Good” category.

Next up: her teal/turquoise dress(es). (She also wears a red one that looks exactly like this.)

Someone didn’t tell the costume designer that Cosette was supposed to be a fashionista, I guess. During my research, I did find a couple of dresses that resembled these two...but they would both be several years out of date by the time Cosette was going on her fashion crusade:

Even the yellow dotted dress has more style and “oomph” than what poor Cosette got stuck in--her sleeves look comparatively small, deflated, and underwhelming, all the more so when compared to actual 1830s gigot sleeves.

In the interest of being fair, some extant gowns from the right dates also look somewhat like these two.

But they all look, well...better. They all make me wish Cosette’s gown had bigger sleeves, a more-defined neckline, less wrinkly fabric...anything that would take it up a notch. (Also of note: as plain as some of these dresses look, they would not have been worn alone--accessories like wide belts, shawls, bonnets, etc., would have been part of the outfit when they were actually worn.)

And when it comes down to it, Cosette--who wants, after all, to be wearing the most fashionable gowns, like those in the fashion plates--should be wearing gowns more like...

The detailing, the fabric choices, the tailoring, and (sorry) the size and position of the sleeves makes all the difference here. A little more effort, even just padding for Cosette’s poor limp sleeves and a belt, would be enough to bump her looks from “kind of sad” to “something I believe this character would really wear.”

My personal favorite gown in the production was very pretty, flowing and delicate--and look: I’m willing to accept that Cosette wouldn’t always be wearing a fashion plate while chasing butterflies (something no film Cosette has, tragically, ever done...) That said, it still wasn’t very 1830s.

This purplish gown is the closest extant I could find to something like what Cosette wears here, but once you look at the details of both--fabric, neckline, whatever is happening around waist--all you get is “???” A lovely dress, but one that doesn’t make much sense.

So finally we come to what ought to be the showiest of all Cosette’s costumes: her wedding gown. 

This costume ought to be Stunning for a lot of reasons. The “Fauchelevents” have money! The Pontmercys have money, and they have society friends! Cosette is a fashionista, and she’s head-over-heels in sweet young love! And one an assume that Valjean wants to send off the light of his life, if send her off he must, in style--he’s heartbroken but also knows, from this moment, that he will never have to worry about her safety or well-being again.

With all that in mind, this is what Ellie’s Cosette wears...

Oh. Okay. Is it her freaking wedding day, or is she just going to a church picnic???

At least she IS wearing a bonnet in this scene, but it’s the same color as her hair (?!) and it’s tiny...just like her sad, deflated sleeves. The necklime and waistline both are at least accurate here, but like the sleeves, the skirt isn’t voluminous. Not a single thing about the dress makes a statement...unless it’s a shrug. The impression is, once again, “meh?”

At least a veil (which some women did wear on their wedding bonnets) would emphasize the “wedding day” vibe. How about, if they weren’t going to give it any volume, some detail on the gown...any detail...floral embroidery...a BELT...a contrasting color or fabric (lace, hello?!)...anything??? It’s just so plain and low-key. Just like everything Cosette wears in this miniseries.

Here are some period wedding gowns, two of which Cosette wears in other adaptations. They all have the wow factor this dress lacks.

Big sleeves! Lace! Belts! Veils! Lush fabric! Frills! Different colors/fabrics to create visual interest! Hairstyles that pop instead of blend together! These are the kind of gowns that say “I’m the bride and this is my day.” Not “I’m going to the church picnic.”

I want to reiterate that, after ALL that rambling...my big issues are that a) these dresses are not--by and large--attractive or interesting and b) that they fail to embody Cosette’s love of fashion. The fact that they’re so inaccurate for the time period is secondary. However, paying more attention to the fashions of 1830-32 would, I think, have helped make the costumes prettier and more suited to the character. How you dress a character is also a factor in how their character is perceived and can be a subtle means of character development. No chance of that here. (Post-marriage, Cosette wears such a blase dark blue coat that, sans fur trim, looks identical to her previous one. Yawn.) 

I’m just a fan, yet it still took me only three days of basic research to put this post together. Expecting a costume designer to put in at least a few days of light research is not a huge leap. I’m going to venture a guess and say that this designer did not bother to do that. And it shows.

It’s a shame, because Cosette gets a lot more screentime here--for the first time since the 2000 production--and she deserves so much more than shapeless gowns and barely-styled hair.

And also more than Andrew Davies...but that’s a rant for another time.

[nybrideofcolumbia]

Blissful Ballgowns For Your Warm Weather Wedding

Kenneth Winston, style Be470 Ella Rosa: For a flowing ballgown option, this gorgeous wedding gown delivers. Cascading layers of Organza are prominent in this Allover Chantilly Lace, Satin and English Net dress. Side cut outs offer extra glamour. Available colors: Ivory (pictured above), White. Available sizes: 2-32 with custom sizing available.

Brimming with hand selected styles from the industry’s top designers, New York Bride & Groom of Columbia boasts over a thousand wedding dresses. We have the phenomenal bridal selection you have been hoping to discover, all under one roof! Among our vast selection, you’ll find countless numbers of gorgeous ballgown styles. And if you thought they were only appropriate for fall and winter weddings, we invite you to check out some exceptional ballgowns that are perfect for any time of year. Learn more about the warm weather possibilities with this beatiful bridal style:

Spring/Summer

Ball gowns aren’t always associated with the warmer months, at least not if you’re saying, “I do,” outdoors. But really, if you can find the right gown, made of the right fabrics, you can sashay down the aisle in a Swiss dot inspiration or linen creation. Make sure your dress has a flowing appeal and completed with material that’s lighter and breathes easier. In the end, you’ll get a breathier overall style but still something very bridal and appealing.

Vintage

You’re ball gown can also inspire some gorgeous, vintage flavors. From sleek satins reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn to soft, 1950’s cuts, you can still dawn a full skirt on the day you walk down the aisle – even if you want a day full of old-age spirits. Just make sure to think about every detail of the day from your makeup to the invitations! Learn more at Top Wedding Sites

  Madison James, style MJ406: This striking silk Mikado ballgown offers a sleek and sophisticated silhouette. Enjoy eye-catching pleats to define the waistline in style! This sleeveless sweetheart offers a plunging neckline to take the “WOW!” factor to the next level. If this is too revealing of a neckline for you, illusion netting and some minor alterations may become your best friend! Available colors: Almond/Nude, Ivory/Nude, Diamond/White/Nude. Available sizes: 2-32.

What Is Your Favorite Ballgown Style?

New York Bride & Groom of Columbia is excited to offer every ballgown concept imaginable! Whatever your favorite wedding dress features — illusion sleeves, lace motifs, bows, sweetheart necklines, etc. — we can find a ballgown that offers them, or we’ll make it so through alterations. Whether you’re looking for simple elegance or prefer details from head to toe, we have the stylish, affordable and unique ballgown you’re seeking. Discover more about the various takes on this iconic wedding dress style:

If you’re looking to make a dramatic entrance, a classic ball gown is for you—and we saw plenty of them. Take a cue from Kate Middleton with long, lace sleeves, or get glam with an embellished strapless bodice. No matter the details, this voluminous style is sure to turn heads. Continue reading at The Knot

Essense of Australia, style D2363: This enchanting A-line Boho with pearl straps is a vision in Tulle and Lace. Beaded lace combines with the sequin and horsehair hem to offer a hint of sparkle. Sexy side cut-outs add to the drama of this intricate wedding dress. Available lace, tulle and illusion colors include: Ivory, White, Muscato, and Porcelain combinations. Available in multiple sizes.

Hand Selected Designs For the Modern Bride

An inviting atmosphere, astounding selection and exceptional customer service combine to make New York Bride & Groom the premier bridal salon of the Carolinas. Our friendly Bridal Consultants are passionate about helping clients realize their wedding dreams. Stop by today — no appointment needed — so we can show you our latest and greatest additions!

Learn more about this years’ bridal fashion trends below:

Brides of 2019, check out the gallery to see the best wedding looks, and read our smart guide for the latest trends on designs, details, accessories.

The designers propose super-elegant tulle or lace capes to cover the shoulders and round out the bride’s look.

A romantic but also functional touch. Low-key and small, to fasten a collar or supersized to get a sculptural effect.

Color touch. The wedding dress comes not in pastel tones only (soft pink and serenity blue), but also in bright and full nuances like red, purple or yellow. The perfect choice for a trendy bride or a second ceremony.

Nude – tattoo. White or nude tulle embellished with intricate embroidery or lace detailing creating a sophisticated sheer “tattoo” effect on the skin.

Twenties’ inspo. Fringes, a low waist and sequins; in 2019 brides will wear linear and shiny dresses that may be flaunted also on other occasions besides the wedding.

Exaggerated volumes: flounces and multi-tiered tulle skirts. To feel like a Princess…

The sleeves are long, fitted, or  gigot style: a perfect solution for early spring or late summer weddings. Discover more from Italian Vogue

Visit Columbia’s Best Bridal Salon Today

Come to New York Bride & Groom for the season’s hottest new wedding dresses (in standard and plus sizes), designer rental tuxedos, custom-made suits and a dazzling array of accessories. We look forward to seeing you soon!

  The post Blissful Ballgowns For Your Warm Weather Wedding appeared first on New York Bride & Groom of Columbia.

[gogmstuff]

ca. 1828 German Princess by François Joseph Kinsoen (Bowes Museum - Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham UK). From Wikimedia; fixed crinkles in background with Photoshop 1399X1860 @ 72 971kj.

[gogmstuff]

ca. 1830 Jungen Frau im weißen Seidenkleid by Austrian ? (on auction by Bassenge). 2Dec21 auction Los 6406; blured background, fixed edges, removed spots and some cracks with Photoshop 1884X2336 @144 5.9Mp.

ca. 1825 Lady Charles Cavendish Bentinck by Sir Thomas Lawrence (private collection). From Wikimedia 682X900 @96 189kj.