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'.
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....
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