Style Selection Fashion

It's one of the (if not the) most important days of your life and you certainly don't want to skimp on the finer details. Yes, the bridal dress, shoes, and veil may be the most important things on your mind but then, there are the more intimate details you need to include in your plans - choosing your bridal lingerie. Finding an exquisite collection of plus-size lingerie isn't that hard as long as you are looking for them in the right places. You also need to be aware of the fact that bridal lingerie is not restricted to what you need to wear during the day for the wedding event (bridal corsets, high-waist slips, hosiery, white garter belts, waist cinchers, and body-enhancing shape-wear), you'll need to plan for night-time intimate wears as well and they need to be special too - babydoll nightwear, lace bras, sexy boyshorts and white chemises. Daytime Lingerie for Plus-size Brides During the day, depending on your wedding dress style, you'll need the perfect lingeri...

From austere dresses worn by Protestant Pilgrims to black gowns of mourning Victorian women, black clothing can be termed multifactorial as it represents solemnity, mystery, and sexuality. By the early 1900s, black became a fashionable colour eventually turning into a hot favourite of stylish women all over the world, thanks to famous fashion designer Coco Chanel. Black apparel is always prominent on the fashion runway year in year out through every and fashion season. The other day, as I sat back and watched a fashion show on latest women’s styles in black, I couldn’t but be amazed at the wonderful styles all created with black fabrics. And though most were really sexy cuts, they fitted and flowed in beautifully fluid manners. They were very feminine and exquisitely chic. From sophisticated suiting and lovely dresses to corporate chic separates and evening gowns with detailing of feathered trails and beads, the black clothing designs were combined with rich shades of wonderful satin, ...

With vintage dressmaking patterns, you are either a collector or a sewing enthusiast. So which one are you? Using sewing patterns to make something classic; to sew that one of a kind 1940’s style outfit means you are fashionably different and bold enough to showcase your fashion sense in a way that’s totally diverse from your ‘everyday woman’. You are kind of exciting in a stylish way. If on the other hand, you are a collector, you are also different because collecting vintage patterns is just the same as collecting vintage pocket watches (for example). Collectors never seem to get enough of their rare and dated items. These days it’s getting more unrealistic to expect to find authentic dated clothes patterns in near perfect condition. Most you’ll find (if any) are usually worn, torn, and terribly discoloured, but that’s a collector’s delight I’m sure, and the most important thing is that the pattern package is vintage. There will most likely be some missing pieces from a set anyway, s...

Fashion is meant to be enhancing and flattering to the silhouette of men and women. Being fashionable means being stylish, up-to-the-minute trendy and/or chic. And even though being stylish means all of these and more, it is also meant to be safe and to die for! To die for! But literally? Yes if you’ve ever heard of the muslin disease . This was a terrible and deadly illness that was a result of being fashionable in the late 18 th to early 19 th century.   At the time, it was the rave for ladies to “dampen themselves with water before wearing their muslin gowns”.   Because the skin was wet, the muslin gowns clung to their bodies revealing all their curves, bosom, backside, and all. Talk of being utterly revealing! This was a way to show off their figures and reveal the absence of underwear! And what did this style of wearing wet clothes result in? Disease! Asides being unhygienic, there were severe cases of illnesses such as pneumonia, bronchitis, influenza, and even death!...

The phrase intimate wear includes underwear and lingerie for women that’s personal to her physical body and unlike outerwear, inner wear consists of items that are worn specifically for specific parts of the female body – the upper and lower parts.  There wasn’t much of a variety of intimate lingerie for both parts of the body for the nineteenth century woman. The most important item to the fashionable woman was the all-important constricting corsets made with whale or steel bones.     This singular item was basically meant to give a woman an hour-glass shape, popularly referred to as a figure 8. This was the mark of beauty! Wearing a corset all day long was torturous, and it could never have been worn without a helping hand, or two! But it was an important piece of intimate wear to have.  Luckily towards the late 1880s, a women’s movement campaigning against the damage the corset of the time did to ribs and a woman’s internal organs caused by tight lacing, invented...

Hip huggers first made their debut in 1957 when Irene Kasmer designed the first pair out of denim. They had a unique cut for a fifties fashion item - a snug fit around the hips and thighs with the waistline placed at the hips, rather than the waistline, and a flare out to wide bottoms. Hip Huggers - 60s With many similarities to today’s low rise boot cut style jeans, hip-huggers became quite fashionable and thus popular from the mid-60s, becoming a wardrobe item popularised by the mods. They remained in style for about a decade with a downward trend around the early 70s. By the end of the decade, hip-huggers re-appeared in the nightclub scene and were mainly worn by club-goers that fell within the psychedelic group. Their legs were quite long and will sometimes sweep the floor as you walk, sometimes resulting in frayed and dirty hems. Also associated with the hippie lifestyle , the trend was in some way inspired by urban living, rock bands, and icons of music; people like Jimi Hendrix,...

The Empire style dress is an old classic. It’s a style that evolved around the late 1700’s, one that was influenced by the loose, white tunics type clothing, belted under the bosom and worn by Greek and Roman women.  The Empire dress design is vintage inspired at its best! The dress has a fitted bodice with it being either short sleeved, one sleeved, or sleeveless, which ends just below the bust. This is what gives the style its characteristic high waist. From below the bodice, the dress falls to the floor in a soft body-skimming (not body-hugging!) but loosely fitting way.   Fabric must be soft, light, and almost airy. Revived in the sixties and now back in fashion, this beautiful style is good to conceal your waist line and de-emphasize your wide hips if you have one. On the other hand, it will emphasise your bust-line and give your body a slimming, longer silhouette.  Wear with a short or cropped classic wig or hairstyle, and if you want a softer look, go with short c...