Saturday 28 February 2009
Trim Reflections
Whilst out and about on our travels in search of vintage treasures for the website, we come across so many wonderful and fascinating finds that it is often hard to resist their appeal, and this in turn, leads us into different areas of vintage and collecting. One such area which holds a great fascination for me is vanity, grooming and beauty. This covers a vast and diverse range of pretty items, so there is plenty of scope for building collections and displays.
When I came across this beautiful Victorian Y & N Corset advertising mirror at a recent antiques fair I couldn't resist its rarity and simple beauty...
...with its delicately etched glass lettering and original heavy wooden frame. Women today have a significantly different life from those in Victorian days and one of those contrasts is in the way we dress. My research on the Y & N corset revealed it was really rather innovative in its day, being heralded as 'the most comfortable corset ever made'.
But I have to wonder just how comfortable it was. History has documented the terrible damage to women's organs, which was attributed to the long-term wearing of the restrictive corsets and ladies would often faint because they were unable to breathe properly!
The Y & N corset was revolutionary in its day and its 'diagonal seam' gave the corset extra strength and created a more pronounced hourglass figure. It featured a heart-shaped bust and was popular for evening wear and cleavage enhancement! I don't doubt it was still highly restrictive for women and having never worn a corset (honestly!) I can only imagine how it must have felt to wear one.
So, given the emancipation of today's Western women, many vintage vanity and grooming items are not only desirable and decorative objects, they are also a reminder that things were very different for our female ancestors.
A Special Thank You!
We would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who has emailed us or left a comment with regard to our new-look website. We were overwhelmed with the response and consequently have been working very hard packing and posting for the last couple of weeks! We are continuing to add new stock and are delighted to reveal that we have also been lucky enough to obtain some real beauties for the textiles section - these will be finding their way onto the website in the coming weeks. Thank you all once again and don't forget you still have time to enter the prize draw (see post below.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Hey If you are not familiar of Adobe Kuler it is a website which lets you find, rate and download colour themes. It is very similar to COLO...
-
Hey This is a pretty simple tutorial that will enable you to create a web page that mimics the look of a Finder window within an Apple Macin...
-
In December, we detailed how the computer game Minecraft had become one of the gaming industry's underground hits of 2010 . At the tim...
-
These are all the films of Scorsese’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net , all polls. Martin ...
-
Vintage Home Antiques Unit 62, Brackley Antique Cellar Here are some photos of my antiques unit at the Brackley Antique Cellar in Northants....
-
Antique Centre of The Month! Here are the details of the Antiques & Collectables Magazine feature, naming Brackley Antique Cellar as ...
-
Eiderdowns; Eye Candy for Lovers of Vintage! Although I love all things vintage, I have a real passion for textiles and for me, the eiderdow...
-
We recently found this amazing book at one of the many antique fairs we regularly attend. Whilst on the hunt for new stock for the website ,...
-
Stunt Driver Ken Block's Gymkhana Four is off to a fast start in its first week. With 5.7 million views , it's the second most-view...
-
Twice each day we scan our YouTube metrics as well as websites on the cutting edge of internet culture to discover the most buzzed about vid...
No comments:
Post a Comment