Just some witch stuff Dress: favorite Coat: Atelier Boz Hat and brooch: Vintage Shoes: Yosuke Tights: Verum by Grimoire Bag: Métamorphose, temps de fille Wand: USJ
Here’s something I have you might like! I got it at a free table at the library and not only is it beautiful to look at but I was surprised to see the inside listing the name of Charles Dana Gibson’s wife. That’s when I knew I should share it, even if it’s not fully Edwardian.
<br /><i>Via Flickr:</i> <br />My great aunt Ora Mabel Hinson about 1905. I have a five piece vanity set that belonged to her. They are cut crystal (with a floral pattern) and silver with turquoise guilloche with a flower pattern. Each piece is engraved with her initials. They are very beautiful.
Now that we are in the drink section of the menu, let’s start with the most important element of any kissaten: the coffee. Some kissa only have one or two variations of coffee, while some have pages of different grains, blends and brewing methods. The latter tend to call themselves 珈琲店 (coffee shop) more, while still fitting in the kissa category. They also offer much better coffee than standard kissa.
Kissaten coffee is almost never espresso based. Before moving to Japan and going on my kissa hunt, I barely drank any coffee that wasn’t espresso-based, and would normally go for latte or cappuccino. Espresso is a relatively new concept in Japan, so if you go to a 純喫茶 (traditional kissa), coffee will normally be brewed by the hand-drip method or the syphon method. It can be served hot or iced, but ice coffee usually has less choice.
In kissa, but also in any coffee grain shop (I make my own coffee at home every morning), they categorise grain by mildness, roasting level and acidity/bitterness balance. Most people like balanced coffee leaning on bitter, while I am a sour coffee fan (for drip coffee). At home, I normally drink coffee first thing in the morning, so I put cream in it for my poor stomach, but if my stomach is not empty, I prefer drinking my coffee black, like you’ll see on my coffee pictures collection (reblog). Also, beware of the “milk” or “cream” they give you in cafés here, as it is almost always liquid creamer (not cream!). That’s why my outfit is all brown with touches of cream, because I usually do not put it in.
Outfit: Jacket, skirt and blouse: second-hand Innocent World Gloves: second-hand Victorian Maiden Bag: second-hand Angelic Pretty Hat: thrifted Boots: Sperry topsider Brooch: vintage Book earrings: Design Festa
In early April, my friend Elle came to visit Tokyo, so I took her to Kokoromi, a quaint little kissaten and gallery operated in an old family home. I know Elle’s favourite colour combo is wine and navy, so I went for that (though this dress is more framboise/plum). Btw, sorry for the lighting; it was really sunny that day and all of my pictures were a bit overexposed (didn’t realise it before I transferred them on my computer), but I did my best with Photoshop to salvage them the best I could.
Outfit rundown Dress and jacket : second-hand Mary Magdalene (not acquired at the same time lol) Hat: vintage Bag: second-hand Jean Paul Gaultier Belt: thrifted Shoes: second-hand Yosuke Necklace: self-modified Axes Femme Earrings and brooch: thrifted Book brooch: Design Festa
I wanna keep talking about Kiki Layne’s Met Gala look & *why* it’s so brilliant….
*sigh*
This silhouette is not only a bunch of checkmarks for all the gilded age girl fashion staples: the color pink, the corset buttons, the opera gloves, the close to the neck -necklace, the heavy halo of hair framing her face…
But what it subverts given Kiki’s immaculate face card (honestly the best face there, argue with your momma) and her being emphatically black, not just by being a black woman, by how she is styled especially the fro!!!…
See, there was this “feminine ideal” in the gilded age called The Gibson Girl:
As drawn by Charles Gibson in the 1890’s which lasted up until WWI, this was the feminine ideal of the era… Pure, beautiful, etheral, the right class, perfect.
…and WHITE.
One big signature is the huge pile of hair that formed a heavy halo on the head.
Anne, in the 1985 Anne of Green Gables, reached for this look in the concert scene here (note the pink sash, flower in her big red hair, neck hugging pearls, frilly detailing empasizing the clavicle and shoulders, and opera gloves):
and other “Gibson” girls taking the hair to pretty big halos:
even the middle-class Booker T. black women of the era adhered to this:
I mentioned the fros were *also* of the era… the exoticifed ideal of the Circassian woman:
These women were exhibited in traveling shows and given exotified backstories of having been kidnapped and sold into white slavery… from the Caucasus Mountians region, in the country of Georgia and regions south of Russia in Europe.
They were exotified as “perfection” in beauty and known for their afro-textured hair…. but again WHITE.
Now, the stylist for Miss Layne said she specifically chose the Afro as a purposeful nod to blackness within the opulence of the gilded styling… but KNOWING ALL OF THE ABOVE, her look goes well beyond just that into the startlingly subversive.
Again… Kiki is soft, she’s princess pretty, she’s pure, ethereal, she’s feminine, delicate, all of those things usually ascribed to whiteness…. while checking off the gilded style reference points AND being a black woman.
And as we know, when it comes to the rareity of black women being seen as soft…
*every.*
* thing.* from the delicate way she is holding herself in this style, -she’s wearing it, it’s *not* wearing her (posture immaculate, hands delicately crossed) to again… Just her BEAUTY and her BLACK beauty in that Halo of Afro hair…
She just stomped all over that Gibson aesthetic and proved she can best that ideal with emphatic blackness….soft fro, perfect face card, and all… all while hitting the assignment pitch perfect.
La Gibson girl es considerada el primer ideal de belleza femenina en los Estados Unidos. Creada por el artista Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944), Gibson girl apareció en varias revistas y reproducciones, convirtiéndose en uno de los iconos del siglo XX. En la primera guerra mundial, el cuerpo y las características aristocráticas de la chica, eran consideradas como un modelo que muchas jóvenes estadounidenses querían copiar, y un retrato romántico de los rasgos femeninos. También fue una de las primeras pin-Ups. Además de alta y delgada, pero con formas, ella usaba corpiño. Tenía la nariz y la boca pequeña que han sido bien diseñados, pero sus ojos eran grandes. Elegante y bien vestida, correspondía con la imagen de una dama educada. La Gibson girl representaba en aquella época la imagen completa de la moda, la belleza y del éxito social. Buscaba también una cierta independencia y realización personal. No abandonaba sus estudios y ella quería que fuera ella quien eligiera al hombre que le gustaba. Deportista, auto-Confianza, sonríe con frecuencia, pero no solía reír, siempre manteniendo una cierta distancia. Con el aumento de las sufragistas, la moda ha cambiado considerablemente. Luego se quedaron atrás los corsés, a favor de los vestidos curtosis sin formas. En la década de 1920 la chica gibson fue superada en comparación con la moda de delicados. Con base en los ideales tradicionales de belleza femenina, Gibson creó una imagen muy peculiar de la mujer perfecta
