Friday, April 17, 2015

Saturday Snapshot


West Metro Mommy Reads

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy


April 2015 - Fort Worth TX

While we were in Fort Worth we paid a visit to the Civil War Museum.



There was a collection of Judy Richey gowns on display. This private collection is an expansive look at original women's and children's clothing from the Victorian Era.  With over 300 Victorian dresses and hundreds of accessories, the museum exhibits rotate to include 1860 - 1900 attire.

Getting photos of the clothes within their glass displays was a challenge.










A bustle is a type of framework used to expand the fullness or support the drapery of the back of a woman's dress, occurring predominantly in the mid-to-late 19th century. Bustles were worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skirt from dragging. Heavy fabric tended to pull the back of a skirt down and flatten it. Thus, a woman's petticoated or crinolined skirt would lose its shape during everyday wear (from merely sitting down or moving about). 

Certainly glad we don't have to wear these contraptions!



















I was very excited to see this hat from Gone With The Wind.




Women’s hats were decorated with wings, breasts and whole birds. According to Harper’s Bazaar, in 1875 the merle, or blackbird, was a favorite, and especially the merle bronzé, a Brazilian blackbird, which was not black, but had blue and bronze shades on its wings and back.

The entire bird was used, and was mounted on wires and springs that permitted the head and wings to be moved about in a bird-like manner. The homely gray swallow was also stuffed and used for ornament; in addition heads of spotted pigeons with their staring eyes; and long mounted pieces from the breasts of pigeons, pheasants, and peacocks were found atop a lady’s hat. One would also see cocks’ plumes of the deepest green shades mounted in thick ruches, long clustered plumes, and in bandeaux that passed around the crown and hung on each side behind. Arrangements of ostrich feathers projected outward from the hat and upward on the crown; left to curl without being tacked in the middle.
Not a fan of wearing dead birds on my head!




Loved this!


Ditto on wearing a corset!! I always remember the scene from Gone With The Wind when Scarlett is getting dressed and the maid tightening the corset.


6 comments:

  1. The clothing back then... very intricate, but almost an ordeal to wear. As for the ridiculousness of slaughtering birds just for a hat, that sort of mentality wiped out some species and nearly did the same to others. I would enjoy the museum.

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  2. Oh the drapery hat!! I am so glad that I don't have to wear a cage under my clothes or worry about the side of my face showing. Yikes! Bring on the Roaring Twenties!

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  3. Gorgeous clothes and hats! Thanks for sharing...and for visiting my blog.

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  4. That was a question that I meant to ask ar my travel photography workshop, but never did. How does one get good photos in museums?

    I have one I kind of like where my husband is reflected in the glass. Did I post it? Yep -- model of Newcomen steam engine. But I have dozens that I never posted because the reflections didn't work well or the old artifact in modern museum surroundings was too jarring.

    I like the dolls! My grandma had the black-haired one.

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  5. Perfect post for the beginning of the Gone With the Wind readalong in May - https://alittlejournalaboutbooks.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/announcing-a-readalong-gone-with-the-wind-may-1-through-july-31/

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  6. It is always very hard photographing clothing (and many other things behind glass). The bustles are fascinating. I saw a square umbrella in Paris last year- I was desperately in love but it was something like 180 euros!

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