Frock Chick

While I was at the library the Ultimaker was also there XD It felt brilliant being able to talk historic costume nerding while also talking about the printer and the software to use it. Just fun 🙂 Also it’s a nice size machine so seeing it in person means potentially being able to plan to get my Maleficent horns printed piece by piece.

Anyway, I know the Opulent era well but it’s still really nice to have the luxury of having it at home. Also this is still a gown that keeps leaping up for attention:

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/155944

Date:1900

Culture:French

Medium:silk, rhinestones

Credit Line:Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of the estate of Mrs. Arthur F. Schermerhorn, 1957

My scanner has fallen over but The Opulent Era has a strip photo of the beading and it is just clear enough to make out the bead types 🙂 Looks like delica style pearelscent bead which is fabulous! One of the desriptions in the Worth Bio mentions “iridescent” beads which I always take to mean opalescent- rainbow refracted colours very pearlescent but either is of interest to me in terms of materials. I adore AB finish so figuring out an appropriate start date to use it is always of interest.

As a start:

http://blogs.houseofgems.com/index.php/2014/09/sparkle-shine-a-brief-history-of-how-glimmering-gems-and-beads-came-to-be/

Metallic sparkle and shine has long been a favorite among bead connoisseurs. The bead makers of Gablonz first painted metallic finishes on glass beads, including iridescent coatings. Next, they came up with iridized and electroplated glass beads. Iridized glass was glass sprayed with an almost hair-thin vapor deposit of metal oxides. The craze for iridized glass and beads reached its height during the late 1800s and again in the 1950s and 1960s after the introduction of aurora borealis coating.

http://www.karipearls.com/how-pearls-are-made.html

Wax Pearl with Essence Coating and Fragile Glass

Photos thanks to Diane Volkmann

Which I had only heard about, so it’s nice to see (click through.) For an example of the description of this kind of fake pearl:

MAN and SHELLS Molluscs in the History

By Riccardo Cattaneo-Vietti, Mauro Doneddu, Egidio

Though I think this has the closest explanation:

https://www.thespruce.com/stones-in-vintage-costume-jewelry-4026020

Saphiret is type of glass stone with a blue-brown hue used in Victorian jewelry.

This page also distinguishes carnival glass from AB (specially Swarovski method) so I think this one is the lead 🙂

Anyway. My desire for iridescence is generally tempered by being sure it’s slightly out of date for my most loved eras! But