Fashion – Page 2 – Elizabeth Hawksley

V & A, Ocean Liners: Sailing in Style

Earlier this week I was invited to the preview of the new blockbuster exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum: Ocean Liners: Speed and Style. If you want a bit of luxury and glamour – and who doesn’t? – this is a must see exhibition. So this week I’m inviting you to come with me back to the glory days of the Ocean Liner and let me take you on a luxury five day London to New York trip – no expense spared.

Cunard poster

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Queen’s Gallery Charles II: The Language of Clothes

Power dressing is not a modern phenomenon, as the new exhibition Charles II: Art and Power at The Queen’s Gallery amply shows.

King Charles I by Edward Bower, 1649

The exhibition opens with Edward Bower’s remarkable portrait of King Charles I at his trial before the High Court of Justice in the Great Hall of the Palace of Westminster in January 1949. It is obvious that the King knows exactly how to convey his contemptuous refusal of the court’s right to try an anointed king. He sits on a red velvet armchair – and refused either to stand or to take off his hat – his accusers were not his equals and he didn’t owe them any courtesy. His hat is tall, wide-brimmed and visible; it must have been carefully chosen to make the maximum impact.

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Making Your Own Beaded Jewellery

About ten years ago I decided I’d like to make my own jewellery. Somehow, I never had quite the right necklace, bracelet or earrings; they were too short, too long, the wrong colour, or just not very interesting. Surely, I thought, I could make my own – if only I could find a book to set me on my way. And Barbara Case’s Making Beaded Jewellery proved to be exactly what I needed.

Barbara Case’s brilliant book

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The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine

My copy of this must-have book for the fashionable lady in 1831 is conveniently pocket-sized and comprises 244 pages of short stories, poems, articles on famous women, dozens of ‘preceptive distichs’, fashion advice and twenty-seven illustrations, including some ravishing hand-coloured fashion plates. Unfortunately, a number of the plates have been torn out. Still, enough remain to give a good idea of what The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine would have looked like.

Blue ball dress 1831

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A Victorian Lady’s Drawers

This week I’m looking at two pairs of mid-19^th century ladies’ open crotch drawers which you can see hanging on my washing line in the photo below. As an historical novelist, I need to know what my heroines are wearing, even, or perhaps especially, the undergarments. They affect her posture, her comfort and indicate her status.

Two pairs of mid-19^th century open-crotch drawers

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Shoe Heaven

Every other Sunday, Leonard’s Shoe Repairs and Dry Cleaners, 22 Chapel Market, Islington, undergoes a transformation. A banner appears over the shop fascia board saying TOM KILGALLON LONDON. Inside, the counter has disappeared, and the shop has turned into a high end Pop Up shoe shop.

Tom Kilgallon’s fortnightly Sunday pop-up shop

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The Secret Life of a Victorian Screen

In the 19^th century, screens were very popular and many well-to-do day homes had one. They comprised three wooden frames hinged together, with hessian stretched across each frame and painted to create a base for illustrations. The owners would decorate the screen themselves. They could buy a whole range of painted decorations – often flowers, birds or animals – and customize the screen to suit their own tastes. Looking at the oval photographs of Princess Beatrice (Queen Victoria’s youngest child) and Prince Henry of Battenburg which probably celebrates their wedding in 1886, I’m guessing that my screen dates from the late 1880s, and I suspect that the original owner was female, romantic and about thirteen. I’ve named her Muriel after my great-grandmother.

One of the pictures is interestingly misleading.

Three boys pulling girl in sleigh on the ice

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Hats: Have They Had Their Day?

To wear a hat or not to wear a hat? That is the question.

I have something of a love-hate relationship with hats. After my horrible boarding-school hat – which I jumped on when I left school for the last time – I avoided wearing hats as much as possible. Though I see from my About Elizabeth website page that I had a white straw hat when I was about seventeen in Paris being finished – but the straw began to unravel and I was pleased to have an excuse to ditch it. It smacked too much of ‘young lady’ and I was desperate to re-invent myself.

Later, when working in Fringe Theatre, I sported a rather nice white lacy wool beret. Alas, I washed it in a too hot white wash and it shrunk.

The hat I never wear

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Buckingham Palace: 90 Years of Style

This year’s exhibition accompanying the summer opening of the state rooms at Buckingham Palace looks at 90 years of style from the Queen’s wardrobe. I always enjoy these Bloggers’ Breakfast occasions, from seeing who else has been invited (this time, the impressive Suzy Menkes of Vogue), the enthusiasm of the curator, and the welcome voucher for tea/coffee and our choice of cake afterwards.

For GR VIs coronation

Princesses’s dresses, robes and coronets for the coronation of King George VI, May 1937

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V & A: The Case of the Shocking Red Dress

This is the culprit – one of the items in the Undressed: a Brief History of Underwear exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The signage tells us that it is a cuirass bodice dress in silk satin and lace, dating from 1876 and adds that it was considered shocking at the time because…. I thought it might be fun to look more closely at why it was so shocking.

Cuirass bodice dress, 1876

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