Monday 30 May 2011

Week 22 - Fashion of the past - "Tailoring"


We are shaped and fashioned by what we love
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



 Portrait of a Lady ('La Dama in Rosso'), about 1556-60
by Giovanni Battista Moroni
National Gallery, London


 Giovanni Battista Moroni, c.1525, Albino - 1778, Bergamo,
was a North Italian painter of the Late Renaissance period.
He is also called Giambattista Moroni.
Best known for his elegantly realistic portraits of the local nobility and clergy,
he is considered one of the great portrait painters of sixteenth century Italy.



 The Gentleman in Pink, 1560
Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo

 Woman in a Red Dress, c. 1560
Gemaeldegalerie Dresden, Germany

Portrait of a Soldier, 1555-59
Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Tailor, 1570-1575
 
Giovanni Battista Moroni's The Tailor - a portrait of a man in cream doublet and red hose,
looking steadily and sensitively out of the picture as he poses, scissors in hand,
to cut a piece of black cloth - is one of the greatest paintings in the National Gallery, London.

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THE TAILOR:  IN MEMORIAM
by Irene Musillo Mitchell
Written in honor of her father, Michael Angelo Musillo,
who was born in 1899 in Motescaglioso (Basilicata), Italy.
He emigrated to America in 1920; he lived in the Bronx,
and died on August 13, 1956.

Here two stanzas from the poem:

I
I am a tailor from the old world.
My craft is dying.  Each tailor who goes is an end - let it be.
The old world is crumbling; there is no place in the new,
For the honored work, of an old humanity:

For the slow, patient labor of a simpler day;
For the personal, the fine work, detail - feeling becomes form;
And what is a man but his touch, his expressiveness through his metier.

The old customer who understood quality, goods, design,
Who was pleased with fastidious workmanship is passing away.
The new, accustomed to facsimile, duplicate, the ready-made,
Dulled by the prevalence of mediocrity is unable to evaluate.

He wears my coat but he is wanting in stature; his measure is small:
The new world extolling mechanical power has minimized him.
But my work is rooted in traditions affirming his unlimited potential.

My coat is cut to the man, his tone, his stance, his gesture -
The man at his best.  Stitches, darts, facing develop a theme.
Seams join, hems turn, the iron defines - a world is configurated:
I shape my life into design, the tailor and the boy who dreamed....

Brioni School still life

VI
I am a tailor from the old world.
My craft is dying.  Each tailor who goes is an end - let it be.

Declining, caught between modernity and its won flickering light;
Understanding progress, non-comprehending its willingness to subdue humanity;
Man, individual endeavor, its measure of the significance of life:

An opus mastered, a flawless coat - man bringing into form:
The children hand in hand on Easter morning,
In suits that poured from me like a fevered song:

Non-comprehending its willingness to efface diversity,
To integrate cultures into wholes without quality,
without color, without scope:
I am the cobblestone street in the ancient world,
The boy intoning Latin absorbing the old church modes.

(I find this very true and touching)

from:

  A documantery on Italian Master Tailors
more
here

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The Old Tailor
Photo by Mehmet Akim

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The "new" Old Tailor
..."Mark Hutter works by the light of the window"...

The Colonial Williamsburg Official History Site

  The art of cutting
The word "tailoring" means "the art of cutting" in many languages, and indeed,
it is the cut of the fabric that makes...... read more  here


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Ready for "tailoring"


Old French Farmers Linen from the 19th Century

Chanvre - pure hemp - dyed in a kind of dark grey, coarse weave

suitable for pillows, upholstery, table runners, other small projects, or...and...

Chanvre - pure hemp - here in a kind of medium grey

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 left hand side: pure linen with hemp in a kind of light grey (not blueish, fine to medium weave)
on the right: Chanvre - pure hemp in a earth color - beige, see photo below

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 Top: Linen with hemp in light grey (not blueish)
middle and bottom: pure hemp

 this photo shows nearly the right color of the linen with hemp(bottom piece)
The mesurement of this sheet: about 100" long by circa 75" wide, with center seem, all hand stitched
Weight: 1,8 Kg  -  suitable for all kind of projects...pillows, curtains, napkins, table cloth......


and cloths like blouses, trousers......

 here again nearly the right color - its so difficult to photograph natural linen!
(the photo is a close-up, the weave is fine to medium!)
To give an idea about the quality: The weight of a sheet this size in pure hemp will be around 2 to 2,3 Kg


to be continued.....slowly but surely!


From the catalogue of  the Mutual Tailor Company of Chicago, 1916
(source: internet)

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Bonne Semaine!



Saturday 28 May 2011

Last Weekend in May....

and it feels already like summer, hot, dry...

...and more 'early buds and flowering'

 On Friday..gray sky...clouds...rain????  we hope!!!

 Hydrangea quercifolia - Oak-leaved Hydrangea
four weeks too early!


only a few drops of rain...not worth counting! But still hoping...

Clematis jackmanii 
'complementing' the lime stone wall on this corner

and starts normally flowering in July!!!


love the color - changing with the light



no rain in sight!

Saturday morning - blue sky and sunshine again...

 these Hydrangeas are also already coming into flower

'Lace caps' and
'regular' ones

A small 'Lace cap' - from a cutting, still in a pot in the 'nursery-corner'

the Oleanders are now almost in full flower, also a good 3-4 weeks earlier


Cotton Lavender - Santolina chamaecyparissus
evergreen, summer-flowering shrub (mid summer!)

Acanthus - Acanthaceae dioscoridis  (normally beginning of July)


 Lavender and...
...more Lavender

  All in all - everything is a good month early, what will we do in full summer???


But as everything has 'two sides'..

 Anneliese's rose keeps on flowering longer this year

welcoming us each day with new blossoms


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His Highness is not too unhappy....


...and we wish you all a lovely Weekend!

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By the way..


HAPPY  BIRTHDAY  BOB ! 


Brilliant !
available at amazon