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kaigouDon't ask me why, but I just spent several minutes paging through stills from several movies. Culprit was probably an unexpected image while searching for something else, so I click, and thank-you google images, a page with images from The Age of Innocence, a movie I may have seen, or maybe only parts of it. I can't recall, now. What I know for certain I didn't see was a scene in which [and the actress' name goes RIGHT out the window, uhm, the blonde, what is her name? well, whatever, we'll just call her] The Blonde walks up a flight of stairs and into some kind of gathering. (I know I didn't see this, because if I had, I would've laughed myself into hysterics, after all the hype about how 'historically accurate' everything was and 'oh the hours of research' and 'everything must be just right down to the very last inch of lace' blah blah blah HAHAHA YOU WISH, HOLLYWOOD, YOU WISH.
Anyway. To the images: definitely evening, judging by the men's dress and the fact that her dress is a) a deep carmine, b) far more decorated than appropriate for daywear, and most telling, c) has the cap-sleeves of a formal ballgown.
And her gloves are a) white, and b) barely reach her elbows.
MY GOD WHO COSTUMED THIS MOVIE ARE THESE PEOPLE BARBARIANS!?
and then I realize that I'm probably only one of twenty people still alive who had grandmothers who quizzed them regularly on when, where, and how one wears velvet, patent leather, gloves, and what exactly is meant by 'no white after labor day' and that not all whites are white, damn it.
Still. I could forgive the white, but her elbows are showing.
Barbarians.
Anyway. To the images: definitely evening, judging by the men's dress and the fact that her dress is a) a deep carmine, b) far more decorated than appropriate for daywear, and most telling, c) has the cap-sleeves of a formal ballgown.
And her gloves are a) white, and b) barely reach her elbows.
MY GOD WHO COSTUMED THIS MOVIE ARE THESE PEOPLE BARBARIANS!?
and then I realize that I'm probably only one of twenty people still alive who had grandmothers who quizzed them regularly on when, where, and how one wears velvet, patent leather, gloves, and what exactly is meant by 'no white after labor day' and that not all whites are white, damn it.
Still. I could forgive the white, but her elbows are showing.
Barbarians.
no subject
Date: 1 Dec 2009 12:04 am (UTC)/is a protocol geek
no subject
Date: 1 Dec 2009 05:21 am (UTC)Velvet is not a seasonal fabric, it's a daily fabric. That is, you can wear it year-round, so long as it's dinner or later (fancy event, going dancing, whatever). Exception to that are daytime full-formal events, such as funerals and weddings.
However, a morning wedding should never be black-tie; a fully formal wedding that's before noon should be morning dress. The difference is morning dress is usually gray, and the cut of the coat is different. For the absolutely most formal occasions, one wears white tie. Black tie is actually slightly less formal than white tie.
The only white acceptable for shoes after Labor Day is called 'winter white'; it's a dulled version of white that's not yellowed (like beige), but has a bit of gray in it. Just enough to dull it down. My theory as a kid was this had something to do with snow and muck in the wintertime showing up sooner on pristine white shoes, but that got shot down when my grandmother stuck to the rule -- and there's no snow in Mississippi. So, no, I don't know the logic. I just know there's a difference in shade. Also, a visual: regular white vs. winter white vs ivory:
For mornings and lunchtime events to early afternoon, gloves to the wrist. For cocktail, gloves to just shy of the elbow. For evening and balls, gloves over the elbow. I believe the glove color should match the gentlemen's ties -- so you wear black for black tie, white for white tie (and I'm almost positive the men were wearing black tie in the still shots, BWAH). Colored gloves, to quote my grandmother, are for strippers and other women who don't care about insulting their hostess with bad taste. (Heh.)
If you're attending a cocktail event that holds over into dinner, you can continue to wear the same gloves, and it's not rude -- glove-length is predicated upon the length of the sleeve as much as it is upon the event. That is, you wouldn't wear something strapless to a formal brunch; you'd probably wear three-quarter sleeves, so short gloves would suffice. It's not necessarily true that one must wear gloves, because a formal dinner (with no ball or dancing afterwards) would mean long sleeves -- in which case you could only wear short gloves, and since those are morning, and you'll be eating anyway, it's okay to go without. (Gramma's advice: be sure your nails look nice, then. Yes, Gramma.)
If it's a really formal occasion and you'll be having dinner followed by dancing, you wear a convertible dress -- it has another name if that's not the right one. Basically it's a two-part kind of dress. Either it's a strapless/strappy dress with a matching long-sleeved jacket, or it's a skirt with a jacket-blouse combination that you remove before putting on a strappy or strapless top, with the same skirt. The former is more modern; the latter was done when you had to go a fair distance and thus there'd be a lull between dinner and dancing (when the women could freshen up and primp for the really fancy dancing-part after dinner's rather stuffy atmosphere). Mostly, though, it's just a matter of never having bare sleeves at funerals, weddings, or formal dinners. Dancing, it's okay.
By the time my mom was in college, having a dress that a) was sleeveless and b) was cut to potentially reveal your underarms (shock to my Granma's system!) was okay, but if it's white tie, that means over-the-elbow gloves in white satin or kid. Somewhere around here i have a picture of my mother and her parents, with my grandfather in white tie and my mother and her mother in full length gowns and formal gloves. Once you see it done right, it's pretty damn impressive, and the wannabes just look like idiots in comparison.
You don't necessarily have to remove a glove to shake hands, though it is considered politer if you do. For a man, at least; a woman isn't required to remove her glove. In formal occasions also, a man never offers his hand first; he waits for the woman to offer her hand. If you're being introduced or are only casual acquaintances, you don't have to shake and a polite nod will suffice. If you're friends, you may shake; if you're really good friends, you're back to skipping shaking hands, instead either clasping hands or clasping as first step of leaning forward to kiss cheeks. If a man is wearing gloves and shakes a woman's hand, it was expected for a long time (up to around end of WWI) that the man would mutter something like, "pardon my gloves" in lieu of actually removing the glove (since a woman puts her hand out first, after all, it means she'll be standing there with arm outstretched while the man must tug his glove off).
I remember having a discussion with my grandmother about wearing jewelry over gloves, and I seem to recall she said that was improper. I never did find out what one does with one's wedding ring, for instance, then, but I did get the impression one doesn't wear the ring under the gloves either (unless it's a low-profile ring that wouldn't create a significant bulge). Bracelets over gloves are okay, as long as the bracelet is somewhat loose. There were rules about removing gloves to eat, but now I can't remember them. I think you remove gloves, but it's also in stages. For instance, in the soup course, it's acceptable to have one hand in your lap, which means that glove stays on -- but for the main (meat) course, you'll need both hands for knife and fork, so both gloves come off.
Patent-leather is a summertime-only leather; it's also a casual leather, and not to be worn for formal events, when one should wear a high-quality matte-leather. Children can get away with patent leather for fancy because children by definition are semi-casual at best, even when in velvet and threatened within an inch of their lives. Never mix leathers, which means if you wear patent leather shoes, you have patent-leather purse; no alligator purse with patent-leather shoes. After Labor Day, the patent leather gets put away.
I know there's a companion-fabric... oh! right, worsted twill, I think it is, is post-Labor Day, while linen is summertime only. (We're talking for dressy to semi-formal occasions.) IOW, you can get away with linen dress for a fancy brunch if it's June, but in January, wear something a bit more appropriate for the season. Y'know, that's WARM. Not really a difficult notion there, if you think about it.
Fur you can wear pretty much year-round, if you want.
That enough to keep you for now?
no subject
Date: 1 Dec 2009 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 1 Dec 2009 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 1 Dec 2009 10:23 pm (UTC)Then again, I grew up with multiple animals, so white coats and skirts were always a pointless venture -- and I got around the whole white-shoe thing by just avoiding white shoes forever and ever because it just wasn't worth having a relative snark.
Though the time an old family friend got married -- fully formal, morning wedding -- and the invitations said "black tie", omg, you could hear my sister and me snarking for miles. We didn't actually have to shove our hands in our mouths, though, until we saw the bride's mother wearing sequins. In June! On a saturday morning! Before noon! Bad enough that half the guests -- NYers -- showed up wearing black! To a wedding, and a morning wedding at that! And the bridesmaids were all wearing sleeveless dresses! With no jackets! In a freaking cathedral! We'd just about recovered when my mom joined in, pointing out that the groomsmen were wearing black tie with jackets cut for white-tie. Were even the tailors so utterly clueless? Oh, it just couldn't get any better (or worse). It was like every bad stereotype of new-money yankee miscomprehension gone utterly bad.
Naturally, we three had a complete ball making fun of all of it.