I love the metropolitan-museum´s online-collection. I could spend hours on this website….
One day I stumbled over a 1920s lingerie-gown, made by the callot soeurs.
I wanted to sew myself a similar dress, but then it was impossible- I simply had not enough or the right vintage material to work with. And modern lace and fabric won´t do. They are not comparable in quality nor beauty.
The only solution was to wait and collect. Which I did. For years I stockpiled like a hamster. But some key-pieces still where missing.
Until some weeks ago. Then I got a huge lot of vintage items from California.
The californian treasures included some of the “missing links”, so I could finally start my project: Four dresses, inspired by vintage 1920s lingerie-gowns, made by the boué seours and callot seours.
Of cause, it´s impossible to copy the gowns . The vintage originals are hand-sewn, custom-made luxury-items. They´re made from finest muslin or batiste, heavy embellished with couture-embroidery and priceless lace. I have not the time nor the skills for such embroidery and my stock of fine batiste is very small. And I will use a sewing-machine. It´s also impossible, to use such huge amounts of bulk stock lace, like the couturiers in the 1920s did, Most of the vintage lace pieces on the market today are short. (Or very, very expensive!) And to find the same lace, used for the gowns, is also impractical.
Another problem will be the beautiful patina of the genuine gowns. My material may be from the same era or before, but it comes from several nations and was stocked under completely different conditions. Which means, the patina of my gowns will be mixed.
Seems, I have to make some compromise.
At least, my gowns can only be a poor tribut to the masterpieces from the roaring twenties. Maybe there will be no visible consensus But give up the project? NEVER!
So wait and see, what´s ahead. Gown number one is nearly done!