Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Artwear and Purple

Salutations,

I've been writing more of my manuscripts of events set in the Victorian Age when the attire for ladies for the salons caught my attention in its link to modern artwear. Although not seeming linked at first glance. The flowing raiment often associated with artwear has had many connotations, likened to the Victorian era's nostalgia not quite taking off in subsequent eras as one advisor on costume history termed it. The angelic seeming garb of the Victorian's salon was worn loose by at least one attendee daily to disguise the Machiavellian or home-defense readiness of its wearer. One attendee at each event wore the lady's style without corset or hoops. She was the one ready to defend the gathering in the salon whether it was a party or tea or reading or alike. Tradition was that the styles she chose would be praised highly by each attendee, a veritable conversation piece. The ladies would take their training for home defense and self-defense while the gentlemen were absent at wartime or in alike circumstances during their afternoons, daily. Self-defense training and clearly more started much earlier in history. In the Dark Ages and Middle Ages a lady defended the home while the males were gone.

Sewing fans will have noticed that artwear abounds in their circles and it has been a national sewing month.

A similar trend was the purple coat by the 4th Century in Europe. Seeming an item to wear for the wilder times, wild being having to deal with things as if from the wilds.

Purple in a historical note is something I addressed in a recent Facebook posting in a writing sample about an Egyptoid princess who was abducted in history for wearing her purple wrong. www.facebook.com/#!/kristin.wall.399 The purple was an exclusive shade from China transported by Polynesian traders and collected upon for payment by the Indic traders, a lubricating shaded product that was used for facial adornment. She offended certain offshoots of the Mayans in her extreme travel on a mission to convert. She was known in the 6th C as Lady-lek.

Purple, sometimes decidedly for the royalty carrying on into the fairytale yarns was also historically many times for everyone and even the daily underwear shade, along with its cousins of red and blue. Leaving nuances of the artistic devising in dyeing to separate a regal from a plain shade.

As I work on a manuscript that I hope will be available to you, Good Readers, soon, I've found many of the details if its Victorian timeline interesting for costume history. Including the fact that every trend except a few countable on one hand that had ever been known resurfaced sometime during the Victorian Age. Silver Linings is the working title of my manuscript and as soon as I figure out how to get this short story to market, I'll be glad to share it with you all. Set in New Orleans during the Civil War, it is an espionage love story and I'm enjoying working on it today. And yesterday. Thank you, Good Reader, for following along with this blog over the years. I'll look forward to giving you the gift of more reading soon. Please join me on Facebook if you're of a mind to.

Take care, and please check the older blogs for funding items if you're interested in the collaborative writings and media items that make your areas safer and other good benefits.

Sartorially yours,

Kristin Marie Wall