Creating an outfit for a vintage blouse, and analyzing it

This isn't, technically, a daily outfit post, because I only wore this for the photos (although I left the scarf and shoes on afterwards).

(Kaksi assisted. So I included her in the photos.)

But it's an Outfit post; it's a post that proves what outfit photos are good for.
I can see the outfits and what they do to me much more clearly than in a mirror. Mirror distorts. That's a fact.

I was rather scared when I saw myself in these photos. They proved that the outfit is not a sum of its parts. Let's see... Silk scarf: yummy. Vintage blouse: does not fit me quite the best, but I still nearly squeeled in delight when I first saw it, and still squeel in delight inwardly. Necklace: made by me exactly as I wanted it. Skirt: I'm very fond of. White stockings: ditto. Thrifted brown shoes: had to have, lucky that they fit.

And what I see in the photos? An old lady scarf, an old fashioned blouse, a squabby bottom. (The skirt is actually a most delightful flowy chiffon, if artificial.)

It's slightly better when I pose differently, but the skirt still hits me at the most unfortunate part of my legs: the widest part of my calves, making them look fat, no matter how I stand. (They're not. They're just muscular. No, I'm not deceiving myself.)

I call this photo "Channeling my inner old lady", which about sums up all the problems of this outfit...
Another scary thing: in spite of the skirt's interesting cut, this outfit loses my waist definition. And THAT is quite a big deal to achieve.

It is, I think, in part because the blouse is definitely Edwardian-inspired, and requires a high-waisted bottom. None of my bottoms are high-waisted. Even those that might hit the natural waist for someone else usually sit lower on me.

It is marginally better from this angle.

But!

Add a sweater and everything changes.

The proportions are suddenly less off; I have a waist definition again, the brown sweater ties together the shoes and the scarf (and my hair) and draws the attention away from the skirt and its unfortunate length.

It was a most illuminative experience.

Scarf and shoes: thrifted

Necklace and bracelet: made by me (I made the bracelet later, from the remaining large red beads)

Belt: found at home

Skirt: second-hand from a friend

Stockings: some Czech brand or other, bought in a shop in Brno

Sweater: C&A, second-hand from a friend

Blouse: Alice Stuart, second-hand from my friend's mother - its age is uknown, but according to oral family tradition, it could be from the late 1930s or from 1940s. Maybe. More about the blouse to come on some later date.

Wartime honey biscuits

I found this recipe in "Deutsche Moden-Zeitung" fom November 1943. It was most probably meant for Christmas, and it features some wartime specifics... Notice there's no egg and no butter!

125 g wheat flour
125 g rye flour
1-2 tablespoons of artificial honey/syrup
80-100 g sugar
exactly 1/8 l (i.e. 125 ml) milk
a pinch of salt
spices to your preference
12 g of ammonia

Form a dough (add ammonia into the milk first), roll out and cut. Bake on a greased baking tin. You can also replace the wheat flour with oatmeal.

- Well, that's what the original recipe said. Artificial honey is a German invention from wartime, when real honey was scarce (I hear it was awful). Nowadays, artificial honey is the scarce commodity, so I used the real stuff. :-)
I used the so called "gingerbread baking powder" instead of ammonia (and did, therefore, not bother adding it to the milk first). It's a mix of baking powder and gingerbread spices - so I left out the spices step as well. Also, I wanted to use up an old opened package, so I used more - I think next time I'll stick to the original estimate.
And because I was temporarily out of milk (that's what you get for loving milk in your tea), I replaced part of it with cream and water...

The original recipe does not say how hot the oven should be and how long you should bake it. So I experimented. We have hot air oven, mind you, so these data only apply to that, but:
I did it in two batches, the first on 200 degree Celsius for ten minutes - those came out hard, crunchy the first day and hard, the type you douse in your tea, the second. The second batch I baked on 160 degrees, also for ten minutes - those came out relatively soft the first day. I have no idea what they were like the second day, because when I woke up today, they were already gone!

Also, because of that, I have no pictures. I wanted to take pictures in the morning light today, but now I can't. :-) I'm definitely making them again. And trying out the oatmeal variant.

Illustrierte Wäsche- und Handarbeitszeitung, 1941

There are much more 1940s magazines in the stack I borrowed from my aunt, but most of them are larger than our scanner. This one mostly fit; even then, some of the pictures are put together from two scans.

This one is also cute. (Most of the 1940s German magazines from Germany have rather boring, war-time clothes.) And it's also one of the few with an intact pattern sheet.






So yes, I may be able to sew some of these.


I'm not going to make this, though. The magazine has several such projects, which pretend to be practical, and seem to me to be actually not. How many spools of thread can you put on that thing? It might have worked in the 1940s. It would not work for me now; I have 3+ boxes of thread.

But the wooden spools are lovely. I got several such old spools from my grandma. Currently, they're still storing the original threads; when that is gone, I look forward to using them similarly to Anna.

I don't know how old these are, but they could easily be from the 1940s! (Although they're probably not.)

The Grizzly King, a 1947 Czech edition

This is one of my favourite stories of all time. I first encountered it around the age of seven as the film The Bear. I loved it, even though I cried watching it... Much later, I found the book in a second-hand bookshop (and bought the film on DVD).

This is an absolutely delightful 1947 edition, with beautiful lino- or woodcut illustrations (at least I think that's what they are) by Štefan Cpin - whom I've never heard about, what a shame!

I have more books published in the 1940s, but this one is definitely one of my favourites.

Dívka v modrém ("The Girl in Blue", 1939)

It would seem every single Czech 1930s comedy was a comedy of errors, mistaken and assumed identities... which is something I bear badly. (And the first Shakespeare I ever read was Comedy of Errors: go figure...)
But there are still some where I don't mind it, where there's a lot of hillarious situations and lines, and good actors and pretty clothes (of course); in short, some I love.
This is one of them.

It also features two of the three most prominent actresses of the time: Nataša Gollová as a young lady eager to re-marry so that she could change her name, Smutná ("Sad").

(Who usually looks much prettier and/or cuter than here. This hairstyle is so not her.)


And Lída Baarová, as a 17th century painting come alive.

And Oldřich Nový as a well-off lawyer/public notary in charge of an inheritance procedure, charged with keeping the painting, then forced to keep the lady and pretend she's his niece from the fictitious country of Hellianda; and plagued by eager-to-marry local ladies.

So yes, it also involves a 1939 version of 17th century costume.

Bumroll!

And a lot of hillarious absurd situations springing from the incongruency of different eras.

Asking for "good old Czech breakfast, just a bit of soup, eggs, fruit and a cut of ham," or something along the lines of it.

Trying on a 1939 hat.

Being dressed by a 1930s housekeeper (who approves of good old Czech breakfasts).

While the town ladies are gossipping with a seamstress in her salon, preparing for a ball thrown by the new owner of the chateau.

Going to the ball, the girl in blue refuses to sit in a car and insists on a carriage drawn by real horse(s).

"Your toothpick's on fire!"

Here, that's the more usual Nataša Gollová. In a silly hat.

The girl in blue leaves a lasting impression on the ball... resulting in a string of suitors. Some more daring than others.

"So you come from Hellianda?"

"Yes."

"And what about those shoes?"

"Excuse me?"

"WHAT ABOUT THE SHOES?"

"I could not lay hold of those..."

She was amused. And so was I.

A 1935-ish hairstyle for long hair

I had always thought that I could not do 1930s with my long hair. Until I saw the 1935 Czech(oslovak) comedy Ať žije nebožtík ("Long Live the Dead Man") and squeeled in delight over Adina Mandlová's hairstyle there.


Hairstyling has never been my strong suit; I only came up with this on Tuesday and it still needs to be perfected; it's also not quite the same as the hairstyle in the film. I have no idea how to achieve those waves without some fancy equipment, for one thing.
And I'm very much indebted to all those hairstyling tutorials I've looked through and watched over the time, particularly to Gertie's Heidi braids tutorial - this is just a variation on that, so I suggest you watch her tutorial to get a better idea of what's going on here. As I said, hairstyling has never been my strong suit. :-)

You only need a comb, hair elastics (some thinner ones) and bobby pins for this. (At least, that's the basic set up - you may want to use other things, like some hair gel for keeping your hair tidy, if you know how to work with them. I don't.)

You start by dividing your hair into four portions. Comb and clip back the front two. Divide the two back portions into three sections again and braid, always starting with the inner section (left for the right braid, right for the left braid) and braiding towards the front. This may seem trivial, but it later helps the crown lie smooth against your head.


Tie off with hair elastics. Now watch Gertie's tutorial if you haven't already and create a braided crown on top of your head following her instructions.

Or just pin it as seems natural to you.


Now it's time to work the originally front, now back, portions.

Again, divide each portion into three sections and braid. (You may want to comb them smooth again before doing that.) This time, start with the outermost section and braid under - so in this photo, imagine starting with the right section and swapping it with the middle one, with the right section going over the middle one as you look from the back. Does that make sense?

(I tried to photograph it, but it did not show. Photographing a hairstyling tutorial with self-timer is one of the craziest things I've done to date. Particularly because every time I was taking a photo, I had to squat down in front of the camera, because it was lower than my head. I don't know what I would have done without a tripod. Given up on the tutorial, most probably.)


Do not braid up, though - that was just to show the three sections for a visual backup. Braid down, at least the beginning of the braids (I do find it easier on my arms to braid the lower portion of a braid up). All this, again, will help the braids lie smoother against your head.

And now the fun part: the bun at the nape of the neck is simply a knot.






Tie a knot, tuck the loose ends underneath and pin in place (four, one from each "corner", suffice for me).

It looks rather messy on the photo... as I said, it needs perfecting. I suspect Adina Mandlová's bun was made differently. Any better ideas?

But in spite of the shortcomings, I already love this updo. It's better than the plain Heidi braids for me - the crown is not so thick, it lies smoother against the head and is easier to pin in place. And it can be varied into a Regency-style updo! Which I will show you one day, too.

It has only one shortcoming that cannot be perfected with time: because of the crown, I cannot wear my hats with this updo.

But it's still fun.

Škubánky

A good old Czech meal, as it turns out. One of my all time favourites, too.

The cookbook is not exactly a 1930s cookbook. It's a 1991 reprint of a 1928 edition of a 1905 cookbook. But the number of reprints in itself suggests how popular it was, and I'm pretty sure many 1930s cooks used it - it was actually even translated into German, as this ad in one of the 1930s magazines I borrowed from my aunt proves!

(This magazine actually seems to have been published in Czechoslovakia - in Reichenberg, which was the German name for the North Bohemian town Liberec. 1920s-30s Czechoslovakia was a multicultural country.)

In Czech, the cookbook is called Úsporná kuchařka: Zlatá kniha malé domácnosti ("Frugal Cookbook: The Golden Book of a Small Household") and it was written by Anuše Kejřová. It includes lots of tips, not just recipes; some of the tips are not of use for me anymore (I don't cook on an oven and do not have to be bothered with stoking it; neither does all of the storing advice apply to a modern household with a fridge and freezer). But some others sound very interesting, like the advice to use plum bones instead of almonds in some recipes...

And there are lots and lots of very interesting recipes; I was tempted by many of the desserts and soups and... but decided to go with an old favourite instead. Because it's so typically Czech! And also very true to the cookbook's promise of being frugal. It does not look very appetizing (my photo is also partly to blame), but trust me, it's delicious.

OK, so here's the recipe according to Anuše Kejřová - it's not quite a direct translation, mind you, but as close as I could come and make it understandable; my additions/comments are highlighted in blue. It should be for 4 or 5 people, like all of the recipes in the book.

Peel potatoes - about 1 kg - cut in half and boil in a pot (2,5 l pot, but it should not be full). Put into boiling water, salted with a tablespoon of salt. Before they cook fully (but they should not be raw), pour away some of the water (keep it for now). Add "a saucer" (I'd eyeball it) of white flour (fine wheat flour?), mix a bit with the other side of a wooden spoon so that the flour gets between the potatoes. Keep on (very) low heat for about 15 minutes. If it's too thick, add some of the remaining water, and blend with a wooden spoon into a fine mash (eventually you can use a potato masher if you have something like that, but the wooden spoon works just fine). (The remaining water can be used in a soup or for making a stock.) If the mash is too thin, it sticks to your teeth and is not very tasty. When you have blended it well, cut it out with a tablespoon doused in melted fat (butter, lard - I like it with lard; you can sort of see what is meant by "cutting it out" on the photo) and put into a bowl. Top with shredded quark (the hard kind; this might be too culturally specific for you English-speaking readers, though) and grease with butter. You can also top it with ground poppy seeds with sugar and grease with lard. (My favourite option) If there are some left, you can fry them and eat as a savoury variant, use as a side dish with meat or a stew.

So those are the traditional variants. I think no one can blame you if you grease it with butter and top with poppy, or do something completely different with it. :-) Just don't leave out the grease when cutting it out: that's what keeps it from sticking to the spoon! The savoury variant is very tasty, too - just fry it and top with salt, nom.
Oh, and if you do the poppy variant, pair it with a good mug of milk! :-)