Sunday, September 20, 2009

Fashion in Film Link

Here is a site with beautiful photos and excellent descriptions of costumes from historical films: Fashion in Films at Winterthur. There are also audio-clips about the designs. I listened to one but I found it very short and disappointing.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Paul Iribe


Paul Iribe was a famous fashion illustrator, designer and graphic artist. He was one of the founders of the art deco movement.

Born in 1883 in Angeloume, Iribe studied at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the College Rollin. He became an apprentice printer at the newspaper, Le Temps.

In 1908 the great fashion designer, Paul Poiret, 'discovered' Iribe. He admired Iribe's use of the pochoir technique, which involved colours brushed onto paper by using stencils. The technique featured bright colours and simple, sharp lines.

Iribe produced Les Robes des Poiret to advertise Poiret's new fashions. Only 250 were printed and each were signed and numbered. This was a great advance in fashion illustration because of the pochoir technique and the very modern poses of the models. They didn't just stand in unnatural poses. These models talked, played the piano, and generally enjoyed life in relaxed arrangements.

Iribe also designed wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and helped Chanel with her jewellery designs.

He went to Hollywood in 1914 where he designed costumes and interiors for Paramount studios. His designs were used in many of Cecil B.DeMille's epics, including The Ten Commandments.

Iribe eventually returned to France where he continued his design work and set up a political newspaper. Chanel fell for the wonderfully talented fashion illustrator and caused him to separate from his second wife, Marybelle Hogan, an American heiress. He and Chanel were engaged when he died of a heart attack while playing tennis. Coco Chanel was devastated.

Iribe was only 52.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Edwardian Twitter?

Apparently the Edwardians had their own version of Twitter, according to this article: Edwardians used 'Twitter' Speak

I hope to write a longer post soon.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Some Edwardian Recipes

I cooked fish for dinner so I thought that I'd find out how Edwardians cooked it. I haven't found the answer yet but I did discover some Edwardian recipes .

I had to look up granose flakes. Here's a site that explains what they are: Granose Flakes