The 18th Century IS back in Fashion !!!!!!

The Palace of Versailles.

How I wish I could be there! Versaille is one of those places on my list of where I want to visit once Mud Boy and I are on our way travelling after our 'home Ed' phase of life is over. 'Travelling' - It's the next phase.
At the moment there is a

1780 - 85 camisole & skirt.

F A N T A S T I C exhibition on at Versaille, in France, once the private Palace of Queen Marie Antoinette. One of the most misunderstood and misrepresented women of history, along with Anne Boleyn, Queen Charlotte and several other women I could list.

Mugler - I want !!!!!!

The exhibition is on from the 8th July to the 9th October and I have very, very little chance of being able to see it. My life here is simply too busy. This is what I have to keep reminding myself lately , we have moved into the next phase. I see life as phases and contained inside those are groups of years, when certain things are very important to you or very predominant. Like those years when you constantly have a buggy, babies, small children, exploration and discovery years - our family has moved on from the early home ed years and even the middle discovery years of home ed - we are now on the last legs of our home ed journey. The next few years of our lives, is only a short phase - It's the exam phase, because no sooner than Diggy and Budge pass through it - Pickle will step into it. That is, if she wants to take any exams or go a different route. As of yet we are unsure and so is she. She's only ten!

1730 court shoes.

Vivienne Westwood.

So this is where we shall be for roughly the next ten years. And not all of that may be exclusively home ed. Of course that doesn't mean we can't have treats, visits and a life! But we can't just swan off, like we used to when the girls were small. Now is the time to buckle down. We have schedules, goals and deadlines to meet. So for now, I shall content myself with looking at the exhibition from afar and console myself that in ten years time or less, they will have an even better exhibition on, of even more restored pieces when it is my turn to visit. Who knows maybe it will be next years family holiday destination!?

But, back to the exhibition. The gowns are exhibits of  works by the marvellous Vivienne Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld pour Chanel, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Olivier Theyskens pour Rochas, Martin Margiela, Azzedine Alaïa, Alexander McQueen pour Givenchy, Yohji Yamamoto, Thierry Mugler… all of them fantasised about the 18th century.
All of them are influenced by this period of fashion. I am entranced by it. I dream about it so often I can feel myself walking in such gowns and lifting the hems to walk up steps.
Make no mistake I will get there one day ...... one day.

The Dress.

Today is our eighteenth Wedding Anniversary! In most weddings one of the main things that the day about is the dress! It has become such a huge part of the day, event and memory. When women ask each other about their weddings most will ask "What dress did you have?" and will want to see photos of it. Some people plan their whole wedding around the dress.

The theme of our wedding was 'As poor as church mice'. Simply because we were starting out life together, I was a student, Mud Boy at the start of his career. We were both on the first run of the ladder, so to speak. I made all the invitiations, the bouquets and hundreds and hundreds of paper church bride and groom mice name places, whilst sat in hospital.

To me, my dress had to reflex who I was - I think most brides feel this way. Some will have childhood visions of the whole day, they will have planned it from a little girl. I never did that. Yet I knew that my dress, needed to be a period dress. One not of this time, but a place where I felt I belonged. From the three periods in history I have the most fascination for, I chose the Regency Georgian dress which suited my figure and size the best.
This period of dress has just the tiniest of material bustles, as the fashion was slowly graduating towards the very early Victorian's with added hoops and padding. My dress had no hoops nor padding, it was as this is a material bustle. The only way in which my dress differed from this one is the sleeves. I had a short summer classic regency sleeve instead of a three quarter length, as we married on the hottest day of the year. An August wedding is almost sure to be hot. But the small train, bustle, neckline and straight skirt with lace trimmings is otherwise correct. None of my wedding photos show my whole dress in such a beautiful or elegant profile as this divine photo - which is why I am showing you this one, which is set against a dark background and quite clearly shows it's fine details. If it weren't for the sleeves this could be the very dress that I wore on our Wedding day.
An odd choice some would say, to marry in a dress style over a hundred's out of date, yet to me it just felt right. I saw the dress and knew it was the one before I had even tried it one and when I did it fit like a glove with no alterations needed. It was as if it had been made for me. I do not believe in coincidences. This was the only dress for me.