Waistlines: A Little Old-Time Revival (Greek Influence on Fashion)

Give me that old-time revival style!

Greek Revival that is....

As all of us time travelin' sewists know.... women just never seem to get enough of that high-waisted Greek look.

The ladies of ancient Grecian times are well known for draping their Doric chitons so that the weight of the primary fabric folds hung from just below the bust, though you'll find other waistline draping effects on Greek artifacts as well (including the no-waistline look ). Their counterparts in other ancient lands may well have draped their frocks in similar styles, but when it comes to these Mediterranean islands we have access to the detritus of their civilization to paw through, and other places - not so much. Relicts of Greek culture have made their way into modern museums, and that gives us an opportunity to window shop through these styles, and pickup a few pointers when it comes to draping and styling fluid high-waisted dresses and tunics.

An appreciation for all things classically Greek inspired people of many eras to try out democracy, create public buildings with columns, and get down with getting philosophical. It has also led ladies of many succeeding historical periods to pull up their waistlines and let their fabric of their dresses flow smoothly and fluidly from just beneath a fitted bosom. What's not to like about a waistline that avoids your waist? 

This classical raised waist image from ancient times, meant that Renaissance ladies like Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, Intimates of Marie Antoinette at  Le Petit Trianon, Napoleon's Josephine, Jane Austen's heroines, Vionnet's put-away-those-corsets Parisian beauties, and Betsey Johnson's 1970's Alley Cat pattern sewists, could shed their corsets and girdles, breathe a little easier, and get comfortable when they pulled a high-waisted frock out of the wardrobe.

We're still sewing 'em today!

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Feeling Like A Little Greek Inspiration?

Hot Pattern's Trudy, has designed a great top and dress pattern, the Metropolitan Verano Dress that is strongly reminiscent of an updated Greek chiton.


 

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  Resources

Waistlines: The No-Waistline Look http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2013/11/waistlines-designing-without-no.html

I love using layers in Photoshop! Usually I create my illustrations from my own art work, but it's also fun to incorporate other people's creations as well. In my Greek Revival illustration above I borrowed and incorporated the following free downloads...

http://openclipart.org/detail/181828/rhodes-cerf---rhodes-deer-by-waielbi-181828

http://openclipart.org/detail/22619/chiton-(clothing)-by-warszawianka


heborgias.wikifoundry.com/page/Italy+-+Famous+Renaissance+Women

Art Journaling: Hey even Jane Austen needed to Perform!

If Jane Austen, were alive and kicking today, she’d be keeping a journal like this online, with light pieces of her own writing, snippets of parlor music, and illustrations created by herself and her family. She’d be reading excerpts of her stories out loud to Cassandra and Fanny in the evening, listening to her nieces play and sing at the pianoforte, and turning it all into a podcast. She’d take regular rambling walks and create illustrations in Photoshop. She’d be developing apps.

Daily life still has it’s own Romantic flavor.

from the iTunes Store podcast, "Unpolished Performances”

The Simple Romantic’s podcasts are now on iTunes!

 (yes, of course they are free)

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Art Journaling 

Hey even Jane Austen needed to Perform!

I know people who can keep a private journal. 

I’m not one of them. 

Privacy is fine for times when I’m looking seedy, taking a nap or snuggling a dog. It’s not that all appealing when I’m creating a legacy. Art journaling, my little performance on the pianoforte of life, shows how I’m making sense of that life. I need to know that someone is looking at my pictures, reading my romantic notions and listening to my tunes. I need my journal to be public.

Who has not been inspired to keep a journal of some kind, and how many have I started since childhood? Eventually I ditched the decorative little volumes, begun with such determination, when the sight of the remaining intimidating white pages was just too much for me. I never quite knew who I was writing or illustrating for. But I always wanted to create a journal. I was inspired by the English novelist D.E. Stevenson (a niece of Robert Louis Stevenson) who turned her own journals into some of her early novels. I’ve been repeatedly checking Stevenson’s works out of the library since the 1980’s. They’re particularly good to re-read if I’m stuck in bed with a cold or getting over a root canal.

Her “Mrs. Time Christie” books are written in a journal style, which I would imagine follow the lines of her own memoirs. They tell the story of a regular woman’s life: including humorous anecdotes about her husband and children, hardships – many are set in wartime Britain, and her prejudices. The entries display her sense of humor and show how she enjoyed herself. They make the every-day life of a woman in 1930’s and 1940’s British Isles look romantic.

When I call Stevenson’s books, ‘romantic’, I’m not talking about an “I wuv you THIS much!” greeting card. I mean romantic in the sense of Jane Austen, the definitive Romantic era character. The definition of the character traits required for a good Romantic, are personified in the heroines of each of Jane’s novels, and in her letters to her sister, Cassandra. Early nineteenth century Romantics, like Jane, gloried in the beauty of the natural world, admired a simple close-knit family life style, and persued education for it’s own sake.  They read and wrote voluminously, developing their writing style in letters, journals and stories. They sketched and painted. They entertained themselves, their families and friends with musical performances, at whatever skill level the household inhabitants had achieved, using their own voices and whatever instruments the household possessed.

Evenings in the home, with no house-wide lighting system, television, radio, mp3 players, or dvd’s had an entirely different character in the Romantic era, than it has today. In typical middle class style, Jane’s family, focused their energy on lighting and heating one room, where they gathered together or, sometimes, entertained small gatherings of friends. Today we’d probably call it “green entertaining”, if we overlooked the carcinogenic, overabundant particulate matter spewing forth from those aromatic massive hydrocarbon emitting logs smoldering in the fireplace.

It was there, in the parlor, that Jane, her siblings, nieces, nephews, and parents, read aloud: family letters, journal entries (the idea that a journal is totally private is, of course, more modern), poetry, novels, and their own writing. It was, in the parlor, that the family played the pianoforte and sang. Romantics like Jane were motivated to create because they had a place to share their work.

My childhood journals had no purpose because they were private. I began keeping my online art-journal as an extension of conversations and illustrations I was posting on facebook. Social networking and blogging, gave me an audience, someone who’d stop by my digital parlor to read my thoughts on hiking or walking downtown, listen to my piano and voice pieces or look at my latest illustrations. 

The pages in my art-journal are filling up now, because I have a place to perform.

. . .

Please stop by the iTunes store and listen to Unpolished Performances, an extension of this art journal

Time Out for Time Travel - Unpolished Performances Episode 2

On Youtube

Part 1: Time Out for Time Travel

Part 2: Time Out for Time Travel

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Part 1: Time Out for Time Travel The Simple Romantic interviews Captain BidingMyTime, senior staff member for The well known Time Travel service, “Period Pilots”.

Captain BMTime "My parents got along pretty well with everybody ‘round there, cuz my mama was one of the N`dee, you’ve probably heard them referred to as the Apache. My daddy was a retired cavalry officer who came west after the war

S.Rom. So your mother was a Chiricahua? Did you spend much time with her family?

Captain BMTime You see hon, that’s how I got involved in the business at such a young age. About 16 I was when I went to help out one of my aunties one summer. She was my mother’s oldest sister. I was always a little bit of rebel at home, you know capable girls with ideas of their own, weren’t real popular in white settlements in those times. But strong-minded women were nothing new to th T’Inde. And that’s when I started off on my career.

S.Rom. So you learned about time travel with the Apache – I mean the N’dee?" .... Click here to listen to the remainder of this Podcast Preview on Youtube

Part 2: Time Out for Time Travel The Simple Romantic reads recent short, light pieces from her art journal. Click here to listen to Time Portal Identification Made Easy, A Milk Can Remembers, The Dasher or Playing at Past Times, the Assemblage – Dawning of the Music

My first podcasts are not out as 'casts, yet. Instead, as I build my podcasting skills, I'm doing the first couple of months as youtube audio- slideshows. Please click to see and listen. And let me know what you think. I’d love to find your comments here, or out at youtube.