Empress Elisabeth of Austria wore this dress in the 1890s.
Austria, Museums and Dresses on Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/71846556534464089)
It is said that the Empress Elizabeth ('Sisi) was fanatical about diet and exercise and keeping her body as slender as possible. You can see that in the dresses that she wore.
Empress Sissi would put damp cloths above her hips to reduce body length so that she could be slender enough to wear the dresses. Fashion designers don't make dresses classy and sophisticated like those anymore. Nowadays, dresses that are far above the knee length that look like shirts are popular. Society has came down on the standards of classiness.
^ Probably good tailoring for women's clothing has gone downhill so as to be almost non-existent now. Nevertheless, Sissi was one of those women for whom they could never be too thin. Neurotic and self-absorbed to the nth degree IMHO.
Quote from: Jennifer on February 21, 2017, 01:46:49 PM
Empress Sissi would put damp cloths above her hips to reduce body length so that she could be slender enough to wear the dresses. Fashion designers don't make dresses classy and sophisticated like those anymore. Nowadays, dresses that are far above the knee length that look like shirts are popular. Society has came down on the standards of classiness.
Oh that is for darn sure.....many women today dress like street walkers selling their body to the highest bidder.....what I see where I live is worse then horrible during the summer..........grrrrrr.
My grandmother would not let me out of the house dressed the way some mothers let their daughters go out the front door.
Double post auto-merged: February 22, 2017, 04:12:43 AM
Quote from: Curryong on February 21, 2017, 01:57:01 PM
^ Probably good tailoring for women's clothing has gone downhill so as to be almost non-existent now. Nevertheless, Sissi was one of those women for whom they could never be too thin. Neurotic and self-absorbed to the nth degree IMHO.
Could you tell me a good book on Sissi? I would love to know more about her life. I did a counted cross stitch piece of her and she was a very pretty lady and also very selfish I have heard....Thank you
^ I've always been fascinated by the Habsburgs and more particularly by Archduke Rudolf and his strange death. That encompasses his family of course, and I've read all I could about the Austro-Hungarian royal family at that time, which I have to say isn't much as far as biographies go because unfortunately I can't read German.
I used to lurk, still do sometimes, over at the Alexander Palace forum for history buffs of royals, and every now and then someone would rave about a new Habsburg book, one not published in English-speaking countries of course!
So, to cut a long story short, I feel that The Reluctant Empress by Brigette Hamann is as good as you are going to get in English. It was highly recommended by those at the AP. I found it quite dry (though well-researched) but the alternative is to learn German!