An interesting visual site on clothing history

[crfriend]

This in "Off Topic" as it's only tangentially related to men, but I am greatly enjoying OMG that dress! -- a site devoted to ferretting out and displaying museum photographs (with link-throughs to the museums themselves!) of clothing from assorted periods of time.

Most of the clothes are women's designs, apparently because there's not all that much in the line of men's styles in museums -- or at least that has been photographed and catalogued. However, in the past month there have been a couple of interesting shots of boy's dresses (for example, that one from 1868; there are others). See also here, and scroll down.

Some of the examples of women's rigs are just plain stunning. This one from the early 1870s fairly well jumps out at the viewer because of its colour, and this one -- a "tea gown" which was a "semi-formal" rig only to be worn in ones own house for afternoon tea.

There are a few guy's rigs, like this one and this one. Not to mention this dress! And just guess the whipping one would receive if you called this bloke "less than a man".

All in all, the site is a treat for the eyes. Find your own favourite period; I know mine!

[TomH]

I'll look more, but the first thing I noticed on the site was... "Women appreciate headless pictures"

In other words they want to see garments, when looking at garments, not hair do or make up.

Tom

[crfriend]

I'll look more, but the first thing I noticed on the site was... "Women appreciate headless pictures"

In other words they want to see garments, when looking at garments, not hair do or make up.

It's worth recalling that the photographs at OMG that dress! are museum shots of historical artefacts not of items of clothing that might be worn today. They are objects of intent study rather than what we might be working with "in the wild" nowadays which need context in which to be understood. Too, they're either shot on mannequins or dressforms; we, on the other hand, tend to shoot our rigs as they appear on us and a cropped head is a cardinal compositional error in most photographic circles.

From a personal perspective, visually I prefer the mannequin shots that have heads on them although I sometimes wonder about the anatomically-improbable lengths of the necks on some of them. The very best of the lot are the ones that have heads, proper hairdos, and, when visible, shoes -- but rendered in a neutral colour; the photo that I about the dress colour on is such an example.