Friday Fashion | Valentina Expressions

It Is Not The Hawaiian Leis | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

14 Aug 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #CoralNecklace, #FashionJewelry, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SummerJewelry, #ValentinaFashionDesigner, #VintageBrooch, #VintageFashionAccessories

Welcome to my Friday Fashion episode.
In Chinatown I feel like a kid in a town fair. Colors, especially the color red and gold burst from pillar to post, pungent food smell comes out of every restaurant, some food do not appeal to my nose, but that’s OK, I don’t have to eat everything I see. Chinese people are very laborious, I can feel the hustle and bustle of Chinatown. Shops are full of tchotchke, trinkets and ornaments for tourists the same everywhere competing with one another. It is common to find food, fashion items and home cleaning utensils sharing the space in the same store. Once every ten shops, one might find a special shop with upscale merchandise, original fashion and attractive one of a kind items.

In a jewelry shop, I found this coral necklace. It is double the length you see in the photo. I bought it out of impulse, the light of the store was so vivid that made every piece of jewelry bright and shiny, but when I brought it home I realized the colors did not suit my face and it looked too much like a Hawaiian flower leis, the kind of garland tourists receive as a sign of welcome or farewell. I had the idea to combine it with something else in a treasure chest. Vintage brooches and flowers pins fixed the look of this necklace to my liking. Now, I wear it wrapped around the neck twice and I attach the brooches or the flower as a pendant depending on the time of the day and the season.

Buying on impulse often is a waste of money if nothing else can be done to alter the piece to your liking and most certainly that piece will end up in the landfill, or in the closet contributing to the expansion of clutter. Knowing our body shape and the colors that complement our skin tone will reduce or totally stop the temptation of buying on impulse. In my case, since I collect many fashion items of interest, I can mix and match easily and I am able to turn things around to make them into something else. I keep my seamstress at work and happy.

Now, go to your wardrobe and pull out some items, clothes or jewelry you don’t like much. Can you change the look by pairing it with something else, or detract something from it? If you are in doubt and before discarding any piece call the expert stylist. I am always available for consultation in person and online. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Why Not Red, White and Blue? | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

04 Jul 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #4thJuly, #4thJulyCelebration, #PatrioticColors, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #RedWhiteBlueColors

Welcome to another episode of my Friday Fashion.
Ever since we are born we are taught to use all our senses and to use primary colors to express our emotions, that’s how we learn which colors make us feel good or not and we learn to attribute gender to colors: girls must be pink and boys must be blue. Some of us have an intuition about colors or see the color of love, the energy of colors, or the aura of each person they meet, but most people don’t have the gift of intuition of how colors work together and are generally afraid of colors, they will preclude the possibility of using colors to their advantage.

Colors communicate with the heart, mind, body and soul, making us feel good on all levels. Human beings are light, we vibrate light, it is like we plug-in the electricity of life through colors. Without light, there is no life, and without color, life is sterile, boring and dark. Remember the primary colors you learned to use in the elementary school and how happy they made you feel? Why should we not wear them as adults and limit ourselves only to certain colors?

Here it is my idea of primary colors, which happens to be the patriotic colors of 4th of July celebration as well. Don’t be afraid of wearing red, white and blue, if it is playful and tastefully done. In my color scheme, you will see two simple solutions, one with a dress jacket and a lacy top and one with a leather jacket and a polo shirt. The pencil jeans are the same for both solutions and so is the scarf, which can be worn with or without the jacket. My personal preference for shoes in this color scheme is definitively the vintage shoes.
Invert the colors by making blue the small 10% of the combination and red a major color and you will have a totally different energy, hotter and more vibrant. Your choice.

Of course, funky style is easier to do in this patriotic color scheme, as most people would mix and match stars and stripes without rules, but my goal is to bring elegant simplicity that everyone can wear any time of the day. People will remember the person and not the clothes, as Coco Chanel said.
I hope you will have a splendid and safe 4th of July celebration. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Can’t Come In With Palazzo Pants | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

27 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #PalazzoPants, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SummerPants, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, #ValentinaFashionDesigner

Welcome to my Friday Fashion episode.

They are colorful, fun and easy to wear, they flow as you walk and they have a cooling effect in the summer, they are the palazzo pants. Palazzo pants became a popular trend in the late 1960s and early 1970s, now back in fashion more than 50 years later. New ideas in fashion are never really new, they have lived somewhere in different times, in fact, Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich in the ‘30s and ‘40s were the first actresses to wear men style wide-legged cuffed trousers. However, even if in many ways pants have liberated women from cumbersome garments and made easier for women to climb on horses or go in and out of cars, there has been a time, only 50 years ago, when women could not enter an upscale restaurant dressed in trousers, they were considered inappropriate garment for the evening.

Palazzo pants came to solve that problem, as they flare out from the waist to the ankle and look very much like a long skirt when the woman is standing still.

(photo courtesy of Boston Proper.com)

Palazzo pants are perfect for the tall, slender woman. Due to the tube-like shape top and bottom, this kind of pants is becoming on a person with large hips, helping re-balancing the figure and putting it in proportions with the rest of the body. It is not perfect for the short and stocky woman, even if she is on high hills. The choice is yours. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Another Couturiers Left This World | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

13 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #FontanaFashion, #FontanaSistersFashion, #ItalianFashion, #MicolFontana, #SorelleFontana

They make us dream, they make us stylish, beautiful, sexy and they leave us with huge memories.
Micol Fontana left us today at 102. She is one of the three Fontana sisters, acclaimed fashion designers-couturiers since 1930.
(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Who cannot forget the controversial dress Anita Ekberg wore in Fellini’s film “La Dolce Vita”? It was the perfect dress for that film, which epitomized the decadent lifestyle of the rich, high-living society and jet set.

Ava Gardner wore Fontana sisters’ dress in the film “Barefoot Contessa” and many of the Fontana’s creations off the screen.

The gracious Audrey Hepburn in the role of a runaway princess who fell in love with a journalist in the movie, “Roman Holiday” also wore Fontana Sister’s creations.

The list of famous people, nobles, royals, presidents’ wives or daughters and Hollywood actresses the Fontana sisters dressed in their career is very long, even Alitalia flight attendants and official hostesses at the UN proudly showcased Fontana’s fashion on their bodies. In my many years of traveling, I have always thought the Alitalia flight stewardess are the most elegant of all the airlines’ employees.

The Fontana sister’s stories, like most fashion designers, started in the mother’s tailor shop or home-based alterations business. They came from Traversetolo, a small Italian country town between Parma and Modena, where the three sisters inherited their mother dressmaking shop and ended up in Rome, where they opened the first atelier, with the only desire to dress the aristocracy, the rich and famous. Their adventure started at the break of WWII, but the war didn’t stop them from pursuing their dream. They chose Rome as their base while everybody preferred to open fashion houses in Paris, the three sisters defied and resisted boldly that market. They knew the aristocracy could not resist their sexy clothes and so they made it happen.

Many museums around the world featured the Fontana sisters’ fashion during their career, the awards and articles written about the Fontana abounded. The three sisters Zoë, Micol, and Giovanna possessed glamour and created sumptuous dresses with special attention to women bust, their dresses were easier to wear than their French competitors.

(Micol Fontana-fashion and art)

The inspiration for their fashion came from eighteenth-century styles and designs of the early Renaissance. Between Parisian haute couture and the originality of the Italian fashion, the three sisters made American women really enamored of the feminine dresses.
Some people cannot be repeatable. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Jewelry From Rome To São Paulo | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

06 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #FrancescaRomanaDiana, #JewelryDesignerFrancescaRomana, #JewelryFromSãoPaulo, #JewelyByFrancescaRomanaDiana, #OpticalIllusionJewelry

Welcome to my Friday Fashion episode.
I stumbled just by chance in one of the most creative Italian persons living abroad. Her name is Francesca Romana Diana, a Roman living now in São Paulo Brazil. Her specialization is jewelry made with a passion for stones, semi-precious stones, and gems. It all started with a vacation trip Francesca took to Brazil, she got enamored of the views and lifestyle and in one decision she moved from Rome to São Paulo bringing along all her Italian style and know how that later she mixed with the local flavors, colors and musical rhythm to create her world recognized jewelry.

Beauty and nature inspire her pieces. She takes a look of Brazilian modern architecture and soon comes up with jewelry reflecting those lines. She observes the Corcovado and the curves of the city’s silhouette and turns them in wrist cuff pieces. The sidewalk pattern of Copacabana and Ipanema become in Francesca’s vision an incredible colorful pattern for another bracelet series. Her collection of enamel jewelry pieces encapsulates the Brazilian panoramas and banana trees. However, she never forgot her Italian origins and in every piece and every collection Francesca brings stories of Italy, every piece is so personal, stylish, keeps women feminine and noticed. She is considered one of the prominent jewelry designers in three continents. Her collection can be seen in fashion shows and fashion stores in Brazil, Europe and North America.

In this video, you can admire Francesca’s “Optical Illusion” Collection made of stunning pieces, chunks of semi-precious stones draped on women bodies like scarves or collars and what a breathtaking collection it is!!!

Her innovative way to wear jewelry is sexy tempting and I will try it myself. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

High Style | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

22 May 2015 4 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #20thCenturyFashion, #BrooklynMuseumCostumeCollection, #HighStyleExhibition, #HistoryOfFashion, #LegionOfHonorFashionEhibition, #RedVoyageIntoColors

I am taking some time off life, business and everything else, but not without feeding my soul with art and all the artistic expressions. Visiting The San Francisco Art Market last week and some museums have been a mind opening. Next, I will visit some culinary academies to experience food creations made by students and aspiring chefs.

The High Style Exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco was a great visit. This is the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection that will be in San Francisco until July 19, 2015. If you are in the area don’t lose the opportunity to visit such precious collection, sophisticated expressions of women fashion of the 20th century from 1910 to 1980.
High Style includes French couture houses of Jeanne Lanvin, Coco Chanel, Givenchy, Elsa Schiapparelli and American designers Charles James, Sally Victor, and Gilbert Adrian, among the others of the ‘30s and ‘40s eras.

High Style Exhibition is divided into three sections: Influence of Historical Fashion, Influence of Traditional World Couture and Influence of Art and Artists Movements.
In 1927 the fashion collection of Madame Grès was influenced by the chiton and the peplum, two popular women wear of the Roman Empire. Designer Worth Jean Philippe of the house of Worth was influenced by the high waisted dress of medieval era, which the Edwardian of the 1800s liked so much. In 1949 Gilbert Adrian imitated the Robe à la Française with the panier hips, (the cage under the dress that exaggerated women’s hips).
I adored seen the shoes of the Belle Époque echoing the 17th-century shoes covered with exquisite lace and velvet fabric, which Pietro Yantorny reinterpreted so well.

Lanvin-1923 Evening Dress

Louis Hills

Satin Shoe-Steven Arpad-1939

Elsa Schiapparelli BoleroDress

Zodiac Jacket Schiapparelli

Tigress Evening Dress Gilbert Adrian

Arnold Scaasi Spring

Arnold Scaasi-1961 – Evening Ensemble

Sorelle Fontana

Muslin Pattern – Charles James

Charles James Diamond Dress

Charles James Evening

Tree Ball Gown 1955 Charles James

(all photos were taken at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco by Valentina Cirasola)

American designer Charles James was fascinated by the women derriere and emphasized it in all his dresses. He accomplished the provocative shaping at the back of a Victorian princess-line dress with a simple realignment of the princess seam and contrasting colors. He created a sensuous form of the female anatomy. In the section dedicated to Charles James the 3-D video representation of his dress construction is amazingly interesting. We can understand how a dress is conceived from paper to realization, piece by piece put together as an architectural building brick by brick and geometrically pleasing. Steven Arpad in 1939 created the satin shoes with the hill echoing the C curve of a Barocco bed, which Chanel picked up again so many years later. It is fun to see how inspiration can come from minute details everywhere even from a bed detail.

Picasso’s art influenced Gilbert Adrian in 1949 and Elsa Schiapparelli in the ‘40s interpreting the beautifully embroidered outfit of a torero, produced evening ensembles with a bolero for a totally different function. She was also inspired by nature and classical art when she produced dresses and jewelry with insects and butterflies, of course not real, but embroidered to perfection.

This is a must-see exhibition, but in the meantime, if you want to hear the curator presenting the collection High Style, watch the video below. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

The Architectural White Shirt | Valentina Cirasola |Designer

21 Mar 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #GianfrancoFerre', #GianfrancoFerre'WhiteShirt, #PratoTextileMuseum, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, #WhiteShirt, #WhiteShirtMilanoExhibit

Welcome to a new episode of Friday Fashion.
A white shirt is as common as one makes it, or a piece of architectural work. A white shirt builds your figure to an elevated elegance or swallows your beauty. A white shirt must speak the language of beauty and not cover the body.

Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre’ considered the architect of fashion, designed striking white shirts, each with its own character and message. Gianfranco Ferre’ passed away in 2007 and now the Italian Textile Museum Foundation in Prato together with Gianfranco Ferré Foundation organized in Milano an exhibition in homage to the “architect” designer of the white shirt. “There are twenty-seven white shirts, a stunning sequence of sartorial masterpieces, bearing silent witness to twenty years of absolutely ingenious and peerless creativity.” – says the museum’s director. The exhibit runs from March 10 to April 1, 2015 and there are plans for the exhibit to travel to the U.S., to Phoenix and perhaps Los Angeles and Chicago.

(photo credits Museo Tessuto)

Gianfranco Ferre’ took inspiration from history, art, nature, poetry, architecture and built the white shirts on sensuality, curves and femininity. Watch his work here:

“Talking about my white shirts is all too easy. It’s all too easy to declare a love that covers the span of my creative path. A hallmark – perhaps the ultimate signature – of my style, which enfolds a constant pursuit of innovation and a no less unfailing love of tradition. Story in motion. Tradition in the form of the men’s shirt, ever-present and encoded element of the wardrobe. That tickled my fancy for invention, incited my propensity for rethinking the tenets of elegance and style in an interplay of pure fantasy and contemporary design. Read with sense of glamour and poetry, freedom and energy, the formal and quasi-immutable white shirt took on an infinity of identities, a multiplicity of inflections. To the point of becoming, I believe, a must of modern-day femininity… This process always entails a keen rethinking of shapes. The white blouse is never the same yet always unmistakable. It may be light and floaty, flawlessly severe (if a mannish cut remains), as sumptuously enveloping as a cloud, as skinny and snug as a bodysuit. Some parts, primarily collar and cuffs, can become emphatic; others expressly lose ‘force’ and may even disappear (back, shoulders, sleeves). The blouse comes with precious lace and embroidery; turns sexy thanks to the use of sheer fabrics; acquires ultra importance with gorgeous ruffles and ruches. It billows delicately with every motion, almost free of gravity. It frames the face like a fabulous corolla. It sculpts the body in a slick second-skin mode. It is the eclectic interpreter of all types of materials: sheer organza, crisp taffeta, glossy satin. Duchesse, poplin, chiffon, georgette, too…” Gianfranco Ferré, notes (quote credit given to the author)

If you are in Milano at this time, make an effort to visit the exhibit, it will be an inspiring experience, Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

A Treasure Trove In Vicenza | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

27 Feb 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #AlbaCappellieri, #HistoryOfJewelry, #ItalianJewelryDesigns, #Jewelry, #Vicenza, #VicenzaBasilica, #VicenzaJewelryMuseum

Welcome to my Friday Fashion episode.
The Italian city of Vicenza, near Venice, has the primacy of being the first city in the world to have set up a Museum of Jewelry. In nine exhibition halls inside a Palladian style Basilica, the museum accommodates jewels, which will take visitors on a journey through time and cultures. The exposition does not narrate history in chronological time, it is not meant to be a dusty voyage in memory lane, says Director Alba Cappellieri. The nine halls are divided by:
• symbols of jewels such as love, power (crowns and bandeau) and political meanings of jewelry;
• artistic and sculptural language of jewelry making;
• the beauty of colliers and copyrighted jewelry made by famous houses for famous people;
• magic meanings of ancient amulets tied to superstitions and religions.
The unprecedented exhibition, which will rotate every two years, also includes fashion bijou pieces, icon jewelry, function, design, the future of jewelry and the use of new material.

Vicenza – Basilica – Museum of Jewelry

Fashion hall

Famous jewelry

Crowns and bandeau

(All photo credits Cosmo Laera – Vicenza Today)

This museum so particular in its genre is intended as a public place with multiple functions where visitors and jewelry experts can meet or as a place for future cultural exchanges. It was created also to promote the Italian excellence in know-how in style and to promote the cultural identity of the Italian Veneto region for which jewelry has been one of its main productive art forms through centuries.

This treasure-trove was edited and directed by Alba Cappellieri, lecturer in Jewelry Design at the Politecnico in Milano and a leading national expert. It opened its doors at the end of December 2014, I hope you have the opportunity to visit it. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books.
Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Bohemian Wedding | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

21 Feb 2015 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #BeachWedding, #BohemianStyle, #BohemianWedding, #BohemianWeddingDress, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Welcome to my usual Friday Fashion, this blog will be about a wedding.
It all started when this woman, we will call her Possum, started to frequent my home. She could not pinpoint what was about my style that she liked so much, until one day I told her it was a Bohemian Valentina’s style, not just any hippy Bohemian from the ‘60s. In my décor there is modern Italian with country French, Venetian 1700s style with American classics, found pieces mixed with hand-painted pieces, travel memorabilia and personal memories. All and all is a style which suits my personality and it feels just comfortable for me.

Fast forward a few years later Possum found the right man she wants to marry. Influenced by my style, she started redecorating her home in the Bohemian style and now she wants to marry in the same style.

Preparations have begun with a delicious brunch prepared by him (a chef) for us the girls of the wedding including myself. I will be officiating the ceremony for the very first time in my life, the other girls will be the bride’s maids.

Nothing in this wedding will be ordinary, nor conventional. Possum decided to get married on the beach bare feet somewhere on California coast. She will hire a party bus to take us to the beach, then to the reception place and back to her home at night.

(Possum will wear these anklets – Source: https://www.ebay.com/p/swarovski-foot-jewelry-beach-wedding-anklet-destination-bridal-bridesmaids-gift/1177730856)

Our brunch was full of ideas and full of flavors, her man cooked delicious food for us. Possum started with a Bohemian tablecloth and two seahorses as table centerpieces. You might have imagined already, the theme of the wedding is the beach with its beautiful calming colors.

At the end of the brunch, she gave us a surprise: champagne color bracelets for us to wear at the wedding, shells, a small glitzy jewelry box and chocolates to remember how we started it. It was presented to us as a treasure chest as if she found it floating at the shore. Guess who in the photo is wearing the blue polish with a large shell ring?

I designed her Bohemian dress already. The day we were going to the seamstress to share our idea, Possum almost fainted when she saw my drawing, could not believe it was exactly how she had imagined. The seamstress will make her ensemble, which we will not call a wedding dress. The look, the colors, and the design do not scream wedding, this is a dress for a day on the beach with loved friends, free of conventions made for a free spirit like Possum and if she wants to wear each piece separately later with the jeans she can.

My inspiration is complete and all together, my ideas are clear, from some of my beach photos I will extrapolate the colors for the reception decorations and for the bride ensemble. The bride’s maids will wear whatever they want, hopefully, they will choose wisely and not black. I will have something bluish-turquoise-aqua to match my eyes. The wedding will be the first week of June. Time is of the essence. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Sagging To The Knees | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

06 Feb 2015 2 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #Codpiece #Flappers #1800'sCorsets, #CulDeCrin, #HistoryOfFashion, #MaryQuant, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SaggyFashion, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Welcome to a new episode of my Friday Fashion!
It is so amazing to see how through centuries fashion shifts its attention to various parts of a human body and attributes a sexy role to those parts to keep us interested. In the Renaissance, for instance, a woman forehead was considered very sexy only if it was exposed really high. To achieve that look, women shaved the front hairline and then gathered all the hair in the back of the neck like a skein of wool enclosed in an elegant net.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the attention shifted on the woman’s breast. Tight corsets pushed up the breasts to enormous proportions, reducing the woman’s torso into a funnel look with a tiny waist and bulging boobs, making breathing very difficult.

Piero del Pollaiolo – Portrait of girl 1467-70

Tight Lacing, or Fashion Before Ease, John Collet, 1770-1775

In the 1800s through the era of La Belle Époque, the “Cul De Crin” came into fashion to emphasize the woman’s derrière. It was a puffy cushion made of horsehair tied in the waist, laid on the derrière and worn under the skirt. Older women carried a larger and stuffier cul de crin. It threw the woman’s figure onward as if she walked on tiptoes.

1800’s Dress with a concealed cul de crin

Cul de Crin – circa 1820 – Found on: http://www.abitiantichi.it/collezione/biancheria/crinolina12.html

In traditional Japanese culture, the nape of a woman’s neck held a strong attraction for many Japanese men. Face, hands and nape were the only parts of the body left uncovered.

Gaisha-Bitai – the willowy – Found on http://kienthuc.net.vn/phong-thuy/huyen-bi-nghe-thuat-lam-dep-cua-geisha-266620.html

Flapper Dresses- 1920-30’s – Found on http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+paris+postcards

Mary Quant ‘s Mini Skirt

During the ’20s and ’30s legs came into full attention, women got rid of corsets, shorten the dress and exposed the legs for the first time. Mary Quant, British designer conquered the world in the 60’s with her new invention: the Mini Skirts. Legs are now in plain view from top to bottom, often starting as high as the crotch.

I could go on and on with these examples on how fashion extrapolate parts of the human body and turns them into the subject of sex from era to era.
Don’t think for a minute that men are not subjected to the ferocious scrutiny and volubility of fashion. Men have had their fair share through times, although men’s dress style has not changed much in the last 100 years.

Going to the Renaissance Fair last Autumn I was reminded of the “Codpiece” worn during the 15th and 16th centuries. It was a time of economic and territorial expansion, a period in which the display of virility exaggerating the masculine attributes in any form of public life played a major part in a competitive culture. A codpiece (braguette in French) is a covering flap or pouch attached to the front of the crotch of men’s trousers to accentuate the genital area. Men enlarged the codpiece with padding, it served as a protection of men’s precious jewels and as an accent of their best points. Basically, they advertised what nature gave them.

Henry VIII in codpiece

Giovanni Battista Moroni – Portrait of Antonio Navagero 1565

Lanzichenecchi Soldier

The men’s jewelry is still in great attention, just the wrong attention, now we have the sagging pants. The sights of young lads wearing sagging pants down to their knees, showing their boxers in plain view overwhelm us. When are they going to understand this dressing style is not sexy and their walk resembles more the walk of troglodyte cave men. The worse part of this trend is to see women showing their undies through a low-cut jeans.

Girls if you think to be sexy looking like that, think again! The art of showing and not showing, to see and not to see, the art of making yourself mysterious is sexy, revealing everything you have is cheap. Make the mirror your best friend.

Guys, when you go to a job interview with your undies showing and your pants sagging to your knees, do you really think you will get a job? Kings and nobles did not need a job, with their power they did what they pleased and if that meant wearing a large stuffed up codpiece to magnify their virility, they did so and set the trends for others. You are not in the same power! Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
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