The King's Speech, Sartoria, Loungwear and the Disintegration of Civilisation

I was SO pleased to see The King's Speech (and Colin Firth!) win last night at the Oscars!

 Over and over again I return to the Queen Mum as an example of How To  Be (Dress) - One of my favourite quotes is from her 'If you're going to play the part, you have to dress the part'. In looking at the often inappropriate range of clothing at this grand event, I was thinking  last night on the categories of dress semi formal day, formal day (morning), formal evening, and while there are descriptions galore for men, there are very few for women, unless you look up Emily Post! Finally, in something like despair, I thought 'oh heck! Just wear what  Lilibet and the Queen Mum wear/wore!'  (You'll notice that Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren looked wonderful and appropriate. Of course they did; being British ladies.)

 I love to remind people that she was not always a podgy 'Grannie', nor even a well-upholstered matron of the Hartnell-Cecil Beaton vintage, but  a fetching 'Scottish Lass'.

In looking for some nice '30s piccies of the QM, (see attached) I also found a picture of Hilary (and Chelsea's) hideous fuscia MOB monstrosity (and inappropriate strapless bridal gown). In the Hilary instance - OMG, darling, get a clue. Do not upstage the bride (and DON'T wear white or anything that can be interpreted as white from any distance), dress your age, dress appropriately (it is a ball gown during the day!) and ...just Don't! As for the bride, sleeves, darling.  Sleeves. Power dressing consists of the most covered up person having the most power. Showing it all off on your wedding day makes you look tarty, not glam. Take a leaf from the Windsors and their vavoom bosoms  - cover it up at the wedding. All of them did, Lilibet, Margaret,  Anne. And looked smashing. (And I never thought to say that Anne could look smashing! but I recently saw some period photos in Look or OK!  Wow! She looked like Vanessa Redgrave!)

This from Wiki:
The Queen Mother loved clothes, and in her early years was dressed by Lanvin. In Hartnell's hands she always wore the pastels she felt  suited her, resembling a bunch of sweet peas, he said, but her
 wardrobe lacked the formal elegance of the black cocktail dress.  Indeed, her husband, George VI, wanted his wife to be a counterpoint  to the brittle, over-dieted fashion plate Wallis Simpson. The King
 took Hartnell on a tour of the Royal Collection, showing him paintings  of earlier queens to inspire him. The look was to be regal, timeless.  Tradition!

 Hartnell designed the Queen Mother's entire wardrobe for her 1938  royal tour, a commission of 30 dresses that were to inspire the future couturier, Christian Dior, when he put together the New Look nine  years later. To both men the silhouette invented by Chanel - clothes  for modern, working women, styles so revolutionary they are wearable  today - were hateful. In an interview in 1968 he said, 'I'm sick to  death of the saying, "Elegance is utter simplicity." I think it's a  hoodwink. Some designers just lack the inventiveness to make it  non-simple.'

 Couture seldom sets trends, because its point is the fineness of its workmanship. What makes you gasp about Hartnell's clothes, like  Dior's, is their dreamy romanticism and their lavish beading. This is  what couture really is: the hand-made garment in which every stitch is  sewn with the finest thread money can buy. He got his opportunity when  he was commissioned to design first Princess Elizabeth's wedding  dress, then her coronation outfit. The wedding dress and its train  were embroidered with thousands of seed pearls and crystal beads in garlands of lilies and white York roses, but its successor, the coronation dress, is considered to be one of the most lavishly
 decorated of the 20th century.  'I thought of lilies, roses, marguerites and golden corn,' Hartnell
 wrote in his autobiography. 'I thought of altar clothes and sacred  vestments; I thought of the sky, the earth, the sun, the moon, the  stars and everything heavenly that might be embroidered on a dress
 destined to be historic.' The Queen had requested that it be modelled  in its silhouette on her wedding gown, but also wanted the emblems of  the United Kingdom - shamrocks and thistles - and all her dominions  somehow to be included. It was Hartnell's high watermark. He was not  really a designer for the masses, though during the war the clothing  firm Berketex had asked him to create a collection of Utility day  dresses, as if John Galliano should descend from Paris and make a  range for Marks & Spencer Per Una.

Of course she was first dressed by Lanvin!  I'm not much for pastels, they don't suit me, I need warmer colours,  but the rest, I can go with, having a 'British figure' (i.e.  pear-shaped.)  The chat about Lilibet's coronation dress made me smile, as it was my  inspiration for my daughter Bridgie's confirmation dress.

So I wrote out in minute detail what the gradations of dress mean for LADIES, and  have come to the conclusion, the most unfortunate conclusion, that  most of what we wear these days is what was called, in the 1900s-1950s  sportswear and loungewear - that is, anything that is not formal  daytime dress or 'informal' daytime dress. We wear trousers, jeans,  cotton dresses, t-shirts, track suits, whatever, which is at the low end  of the dress scale.

Ladies
Formal, Morning:  day dress - street length dress of fine (silk, rayon, crepe) stuff, possibly with matching coat, pearls, gloves, hat. Church qualifies as formal morning dress, on Sundays, or for weddings or christenings.

Formal, evening: ball gown (full length with or without decolletage), tiara, [expensive heirloom] jewellery, opera length gloves, gold or silver shoes

Informal, Evening: evening dress (long, of fine stuff the fashionable silhouette, with bling) or tunic and wide soft trousers (or evening ethnic dress - if you are ethnic, in a foreign country, or at home), 'cocktail' dress (street length of fine stuff, with bling), jewellery, no tiara, gold, silver, or coloured satin or velvet shoes

Mourning: Family members (unless the deceased specifically requested otherwise)- plain black long-sleeved street length dress of dull not shiny material, hat with a veil, gloves. Pearls allowed or mourning jewellery. Friends- black, dark grey or navy blue plain long-sleeved dress, hat, gloves. Pearls allowed.  Note: children under the age of fourteen do not wear black. Girls wear white dresses with black ribbons on the shoulders, and ankle socks or stockings if over the age of ten.

Casual: Afternoon dress (fashionable, with sleeves), pearls, gloves, hat. No matching coat, patterned dress okay.

Business: Afternoon dress (in muted prints okay) or suit (in grey, navy, brown or black), subdued jewellery (earrings, no more than one ring on each hand, wristwatch), pumps

Sportswear: Casual (cotton or wool) trousers, skirts, blouse, jacket, or cardigan, appropriate to sport (tennis, climbing, swimming, etc), cotton dress

Morning wear: cotton dress, jeans, t-shirt or top

Loungewear: jeans, t-shirt or top, cotton dress, wrapper (dressing gown), pyjamas


It occurs to me that this scale ONLY applies to the upper-middle and  upper classes. A midling person would wear their 'Sunday best' for  dinner invitations, weddings and funerals, without all these  gradations and rules.

 So that says a lot about a) where my head is; b) my family; for, as a male friend pointed out in looking at some pictures from the 19th C. of my family, 'Your family had money. MY family didn't dress like  this.' The contrary had NEVER occurred to me,...

 Says she, who owns a fur coat, a tiara and proper evening  dress....(and more gloves than you can shake a stick at.)

Some of my US friends may be wondering what, in the scale of things, a man's 'lounge suit' is. Loungewear – from Merriam Webster: informal clothing usually designed to be worn at home First Known Use of LOUNGEWEAR circa 1957  Anyway, this, on 'lounge suits' from Style Forum

 Quote:
 Originally Posted by maomao1980
 dress code for a dinner I'm going to. Does it just mean don't wear a tie?

 The modern "business suit" is basically just a lounge suit - worn of course with a tie. It was probably called that because it was  originally a casual form of dress for the country and seaside. It was  only good for lounging around in. You no more went to work in it back  then than you would today wearing a track suit.

 Originally the morning coat was just slightly dressier than a lounge  suit - but not by much. At least morning dress was accetable for casual city wear. The frock coat was the Victorian equivalent of what
 a gentleman wore to a formal job interview during the day. A tail coat  was 'full dress' for the evening.

 There is this sorry trend today to regarding the lounge suit - the Victorian track suit - as being some sort of 'formal' dress these  days. Often it gets substituted for situations that traditionally would have demanded full dress.

 Me - I regard it as scarcely more formal than a track suit. And why the heck would you invite guests to wear their normal work clothes to  a social event anyway?

 Rant over

 Because the lounge suit is a "Victorian track suit" an alternative way of wording an invitation to wear them for an event is to announce the  dress code as being "informal". From time to time you get people
 posting asking how it is that suits can possibly be "informal", but  daytime formal wear is still morning dress for daytime events and  white tie for evening events.

 In summary:

 1. Evening formal (full dress in older parlance)= tail coat
 2. Daytime formal (full dress)= morning coat
 3. Evening semi-formal= dinner jacket ("Tuxedo")
 4. Daytime semi-formal= stroller (a lounge suit version of a morning
 coat lacking tails)
 5. Informal= "Victorian track suit"

 Those interested in the history of dress might find it interesting to  read my Wikipedia article on frock coats. I wrote 98% of the  introduction and first section.

 You will see that lounge suits have slowly climbed up the scale of  formality in the same way the frock coat did, starting as casual dress  and slowly creeping up towards becoming ultra-formal wear. If morning  dress is allowed to die out, then the same thing will happen to the  Victorian track suit and it too will turn into ultra-formal wear for  only the ultra-pretentious.

 I know a semi-formal technically calls for black tie, that's why I put  quotation marks around semi. The masses wouldn't know a formal from a  semi-formal if you drew a flow chart for them, hence the existence of  this thread. (Note: Okay, someone already defended me, sorry for  this).

 Quote:
 If in doubt, wear a tie. You can always take it off and slip it in to your pocket. Just judge
 the mood when you arrive. 

 You didn't just counsel a fellow member to take off his tie at an event while he's wearing a suit, did you? O tempora, o mores. You show up with a tie, you leave with a tie. Period. That or turn in your SF
 membership.

This is the male equivalent of showing up at home with your stockings in your handbag - very bad indeed. Only a tarty sort would do that. This of course presumes that modern femmes wear stockings, which seems to be a rarity in itself.... 'Arrive at home with your knickers in your handbag...' would today convey the same (Don't Do This!) message....

Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture

Rush out NOW and read this book.
EVERYTHING that Shannon advocates for in Radical Homemakers is what I've been about since I was 14 years old. Everything. It is downright amusing that a radical sociology book about taking back the home can make me CRY. But it does.

I feel validated for everything I have ever believed and striven for. And she describes the three stages of the process, and I can agree with her conclusion that if one spends too long in Step Two that one becomes subject to the kind of depression and futility that Betty Friedan wrote so passionately against.

She also argues against the wife-mother as chauffeur car culture that arose after the Second World War - which was totally foisted on us by the corporations. We are not here to drive our children from this and that or to buy this or that for the husband and 'the house'! That is not our role in life! But we have been pressurised into that role. Unless we rebel...

=) Here's to rebellion! and making a real home.

Viz:
Renouncing: increasingly aware of the illusory happiness of a consumer society. Recognise and question the compulsion to purchase goods and services that they feel they could provide for themselves 'if only...'

Reclaiming: Recovering many skills that enable one to build a life without a conventional income. This phase can take a few years or a lifetime and will perpetually be returned to as one builds ever more skills. If dwelt only in this phase for too long begin to manifest symptoms of Friedan's housewife's syndrome - 'what's all this for?'

Rebuilding: Take on genuine creative challenges, engagement with community, make significant contributions toward rebuilding a new society that reflects one's vision of a better world, through artwork, writing, farming, fine craftwork, social reform, activism, teaching, or a small business.

'The choice to become homemakers is not an act of submission or family servitude. It is an act of social transformation.... it is time we come to think of our hoes as living systems. Like sourdough starter, the home's survival requires constant attention. A true home pulses with nonhuman life - vegetable patches, yeast, backyard hens, blueberry bushes, culturing yoghurt, fermenting wine and sauerkraut, brewing beer, milk goats, cats, dogs, houseplants, kids' science projects, pet snakes and strawberry patches...'

Commodious

So my latest foray into permaculture has been very literal: DIY composting toilets. Being dismayed at commercial ones costing thousands of dollars, I as others have thought 'there has to be a better way!' Enter the good people from Humanure, who have simple commodes (and bin liners for the squeamish) and while other sites have DIY set ups that are like what you would see in old outhouses, except with the 5-gallon bucket beneath, and no smell!

These function with the simple expedient of adding a scoop of sawdust or similar fine organic matter over all. No water is necessary. When the bucket is 1/2- 2/3 full, you take it to your compost bin, make a little well in the compost, add the material, cover. Clean out the bucket with some white vinegar and a little soap. You can used the same kind of brush you would use with a toilet, a scrub brush or whatever works.

Easy peasy.

Now some of you might be grossed out by this, as with the boiling laundry idea, but it is really quite sanitary and odourless (unlike boiling men's dirty socks) and completely natural. If the simple processes are followed, and common cleanliness is observed (that means wash your hands and clean the seat and lid as you would any toilet) nature will do the rest with the waste matter, without disease, flies or other vermin.

Much cleaner and less bother than a traditional outhouse!