An understated 1930s heroine's wardrobe

 

A look in the calendar informed me it's the nameday for Erna (a pretty unusual name in Czechia), which makes this the perfect day to post about Erna Ženíšková's wardrobe in Děvčata, nedejte se! (1937).

It's a 1930s film with shenanigans: Here, a single mother starting in a new job temporarily deposits her baby with her no-good former partner who is so no-good that he immediately puts his own baby daughter in his neighbour's room to get rid of her, and skips town. Said neighbour is a good-hearted teacher who is just about to head out to his new job at a girls' boarding school, also in a different town... and because he's good-hearted, he won't leave the accidentally acquired baby behind. Hijinks ensue. The baby acquires a schoolful of young "mothers"; the teacher acquires a young admirer, but then also, ultimately, a prospective wife to go with the baby. The baby acquires a father and her mother acquires a far more responsible if rather scatterbrained prospective husband.

The whole film's now legally free on YouTube, courtesy of the Czech National Film Archive. It was already previously there temorarily during lockdowns, in what I understand was probably some sort of lockdowns measure?, which is how a couple years ago I found out that I LOVE what Erna Ženíšková was wearing there.

And that I want that dress.

My understanding of what's going on here is that there's a centre front seam. There are darts going down from the shoulders, hiding behind the collar here - shoulder darts seem to be the standard solution at this point in time. The bottom of the bodice appears to be bloused. There's definitely a waist seam. I'm not sure if there are or aren't darts in the skirt. The dress has a side opening on the right, where the belt closes with two shank buttons.

The skirt appears to be fairly narrow but not too restrictive, although my screengrabs fail to convey that properly. Maybe bias-cut?

And the collar exists only in the front.

The sleeve heads have only a slight puff, and there are darts there.

 

Plus there's that thin line of white at the sleeves that, in an understated way, ties it all together.

It's like an upgraded Little Black Dress, and I love it. I do wonder if the white parts might be made interchangeable, snapping in, so that it's a proper LBD that you can change the look of with accessories?

It looks very similar - though it's not identical - to this vintage pattern, which gives me those interchangeable accessories ideas:

I found this image here. If anyone knows which pattern this actually is, please let me know!

Erna's also wearing a sweater in the film! This is, in fact, her first appearance.

 

Actually I think it's a cardigan... there appears to be an overlap at the hem here...

 

I don't really see any obvious buttons and buttonholes in my screengrabs, though. Not enough detail. :-(

In any case it's quite fitted, shaped largely by being ribbed, and I think the basic construction could just as easily be applied to a sweater. And I love that it goes a bit further down the hips than many other 1930s knits. A practical garment for an active person!

The skirt she wears in this first scene is another thing I'd love to recreate - it appears to be a simple flared gored number.

Not sure if this is the same skirt or a different one:

I think that might be another knitted jumper? With a lacy collar.

And that's all there is from her! I also love the storytelling in her clothes - I showed it out of order, but she starts out with the very simple cardigan-and-skirt combo, as someone almost at the end of her rope. Later on, already getting on her own two feet with a new job, she has more confidence which shows in the more spiffy, put-together number - we can perhaps imagine she bought that lacy collar to spice up her existing outfits. Then, when she goes to the school to find her daughter, she's obviously put on her very best clothes to present herself in the best possible light.

Erna wasn't a big name actress, in fact I think she wasn't an actress at all - her sister Marie was. And in this film the big-name actress was Adina Mandlová, who's in a greater part of the film. But Erna is "the endgame". :D She was the mother of the baby who got cast, and in the end she got cast in the role of the struggling single mother herself.

It's entirely possible that the clothes she's wearing in the film are her own... What struck me about them, and what I fell in love with, is the fact they're quite understated and practical. Not the usual 1930s film heroine look. These are 1930s clothes I can picture myself wearing!!!

(Well... aside from the greater number of buttons. Koumpounophobia.)

Obviously I don't have Erna's willowy figure; but a big part of what I find alluring about these clothes is that with the appropriate adjustments for fit and proportions they'd probably look good on just about anyone.

Plus I love, love, love her everyday-person hairstyles!

And her winning smile that also won over our good-hearted hero.

Seriously, though, that dress. I have a very very dark navy lightweight worsted wool earmarked for it. It's happening! I don't know when, but it's happening.

A historical costumer's progress

It's not going to be an overview for beginners's education / advanced amusement type of post.

It's just a fun little thing I noticed which marks my own progress.

Back in 2011 (whoa), I wrote about watching the Czech TV series F.L. Věk. I wrote also - how could I not - about the costumes.

What I did not mention in the post was that I had looked at the picture I shared there, of the character Márinka in a printed dress, and that I had gone: "Points for trying but that's a roller print and this is too early for that." (Early 1790s, I believe.)

The aforementioned progress is like this:

In 2018, I look at the picture and go: "That's modrotisk!"

Traditional indigo resist print. It's not roller print; it's block print. Even those that look like roller prints.

I still think this particular pattern is probably anachronistic for early 1790s, but now I actually know the technique isn't. :D

Bonus: I can get very similar fabric (or is it really the same?) if I were inclined to recreate the costume and put that kind of money into it (which I'm not, but I do badly want to make a historical modrotisk dress one day). I think the one in the costume got more indigo bath dips than the one the Danzingers are selling now, so I'd probably go with the version from Strážnice... also, how come they have the same printing block?!

... unless, of course, Márinka's dress was a cheaper modern knockoff of the fabric style. Entirely plausible with a TV costume.

(Further bonus: I can show you part of how it's done. If I get my act together and finally finish the post on the workshop in Strážnice I started last August.)

A Loki-coloured necklace

Some colours just look good together, okay? And I had these black and green glass beads. And these brass-coloured ones (that I suspect are actually glass, too).

And one single orphaned pearly bead.

The colours just work, and I had these beads that needed to be used up.

I was also inspired by some necklaces I've seen online - I had a mental image of a more masculline-y type of necklace, what with the black. It turns out the mental image was for a "twelve step necklace". Huh.

Whatever. I used that orphaned bead in a dignified manner and I now have a necklace to balance out my jewellery hanger. The bluish and silvery side started overpowering the warm-coloured side. That, frankly, was to be expected.

2013 in Review, Part 3

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

26... I can’t remember what I did on the day itself, but the day after I celebrated with my family in our favourite café.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?

More of the classic, more of the historically influenced eclecticism, more of what I enjoy.

What kept you sane?

Being with my family and friends and being alone, in good proportion.
Seeing new places, and visiting Chotěboř and going through the breathtaking Doubrava River Valley like every year. Being in a forest from time to time.

And writing stories (because the pressure of my ideas would drive me insane otherwise).

And good music.

And jumping around the house the way I’ve always done, with music, or because I have too much energy, or too many ideas.

And the occasional Bible verse. :-)

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

In December, I fell victim to the Tom Hiddleston craze (he's both funny and considerate, which is a rare combination). And I've watched a lot of Ian McKellen interviews, too. I guess I have a thing for thoughtful British Shakespearean actors now.

And Peter Capaldi, obviously. This documentary about Scottish art is the best thing I've seen in quite a while.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I'd actually managed to keep up with the Historical Sew Fortnightly.

What political issue stirred you the most?

I’m not very politically-focused, but the first direct presidential election would capture anyone’s attention.

And the death of Natalya Gorbanevskaya, which is a private event in itself, but what she stood for was not.

 

Who did you miss?

No one I want to mention here...

Who was the best new person you met?

The new members of our youth magazine group.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.

Mentioned in some of the previous posts. More lessons, actually. And they're a kind of thing I've known before, but now I know them better.
Just because plans fall through does not mean the world falls down.
And I have to watch out what kind of mindset I surround myself with or take for granted or some such. It's so easy to stop noticing that I've gone somewhere I had not intended to be.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I can't think of anything. Because I tend to listen to songs that do not have very vague lyrics. And if you want to sum up a whole year, you have to be somewhat vague.
So maybe Don't Forget Your Hat from Privateering; I'm not sure why. Hat, and rain (there was a lot of rain in 2013, though maybe not more than in some other years), and travelling by train, and maybe something else, too.

Well, look out the window
Never saw so much rain
You better get down to the station
If you want to catch that train
So long, I guess that's that
Hey, hey, don't forget your hat

Well, you don't call the action
You don't make the rules
You don't pay the piper
You don't even pay the fuel
So long, I guess that's that
Hey, hey, don't forget your hat

Well, it's a big old world out there
Go get it if you can
You got a ways to go
Before you get to be a man
So long, I guess that's that
Hey, hey, don't forget your hat

That's the hat of the year 2013.

Five personally significant events of 2013:

Two photos from this blog were published in a book. (Daniel E. Freeman: Mozart in Prague, Bearclaw Publishers. It's the suits of Count Černín.) So that goes to show me that my efforts to document "Czech Republic not-so-well-known" do have some sort of significance somewhere.
The editorial board meeting and workshop in Mnichovo Hradiště - already mentioned a lot.
Not exactly an "event", but I did some of my first official translations.
The Bombino concert, because it's definitely not every day I meet a Nigerian musician (although I really, really, really hope he will come again...)
A certain private online conversation concerning one of my stories - that had a very personal significance, so I will not say what exactly it was, but it is connected to one of those two lessons I've learned.

Five things I want to do in 2014:

Post more.

Sew more.

Keep working on the youth magazine.
Finally make myself a Regency dress...
... and visit a certain chateau while wearing it.

Five people I’d like to know better in 2014:

... real life people. All real life people, I guess.

2013 in review: Part 2

Compared to this time last year, are you:

1. happier or sadder? I think happier, because unlike the years before, I did keep in touch with more of my friends, at least a bit, and that helps a lot. And as evidenced in the previous post and below, I’ve discovered some great music, and realised a little thing about the way I spend my time, and that helps, too.

2. thinner or fatter? About the same, I think. I don't keep close trace. (The Little Black Dress still fits.)

3. richer or poorer? See above. The same student living on potatoes and onions and stuff. :D Though unlike the year before, I've discovered the awesomeness that are chicken skeletons for soup (with enough meat for a dinner for one!) and homemade noodles. (Why it took me so long? I guess because I was head over heels in love with leavened dough. I still am in love, but it's toned down now, and I've gained enough experience with it to whip it up confidently and shift my attention elsewhere.)

(And why I talk about food? Because it's part of what most of my money went into.)

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sewing.

And more meeting with the editorial board, which due to my not being in Prague was not possible. This year, more of us are not from Prague, and so it will hopefully be better.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Procrastinating, as usual...

And spending time on a certain Czech fashion-focused site/forum. I'm a happier person when I don't go there and don't engage in discussion with people who don't get my drift and try to force theirs on me. There were some interesting discussions (often historical-related) and some good advice, but it was mostly eating up my time and energy, and reinforcing a sort of negative approach to life and vainglory or what. The whole site has too broad a focus and it's pretty much all based on critique. And while I originally thought constructive criticism was useful, there was far less of it and far more of the other kind than was good for me; a tendency to find faults at any cost, or failure to explain why someone did not like something (a system of posts rating that leads to a lot of unexplained anonymous hate. Most notable case: American Duchess shoes!)

I'm not going to go and delete my account to demonstrate my epiphany (a lot of the more reasonable members whom I actually enjoyed a discussion with seem to have done that), but phew, I do have better, more positive, productive things to do with my time.
Like the newer and so far mostly stagnant Czech sewing forum. That's much closer to my heart.

I mean, I like constructive criticism. I may not like it at first if it is aimed at something dear to me, but in the long run, it helps.
I just think it is a waste of - not just time, but humanity -  to almost purposefully not like things in a not constructive way. And even though I said, and keep saying, that I do not make resolutions, my one resolution for 2014 and onwards might be the obvious and often repeated but still easily forgotten "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." (Phillippians 4, 8)

Phew. Time for something more worthy of praise.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Bombino!

So many thanks to Jana Š. for bringing him to my attention. It’s... just wow. Perfect feel good music for me.

Bruce Springsteen. It used to be one of those names you keep running into and for some reason never check out (does that happen to you?). So I finally did. And loved a lot of what I heard, particularly these two songs:

For the record - because these seem to spur a lot of heated political / social debate on YouTube - I am not going to pretend I know all that these songs are about. I love the music, and the fact that the lyrics are engaged and engaging does not hurt.
And now I regret that I did not check him out a year earlier and missed out on his concert in Prague last year.

Plus, in a convoluted internet wormhole way, I started listening to the Seatbelts' Cowboy Bebop soundtracks at the very end of the year, and again, wow – with this, and Privateering, and The Bad Plus that Oona brought to my attention earlier, I’m finding out that I actually like jazz and/or blues. :D

Aaand... once more, Radůza's Psalm 22.

Thank God for YouTube - it's an excellent source for musical discoveries! The world is full of great, great music.

How did you spend Christmas?

Fell ill before it, and did much less preparation than I planned to. Had fried carp. (I've had carp before, but not fried in the traditional Czech Christmas way. It was good.) Had our usual wine sausage, too, and wanted more, even though there was lots. Managed to make a good potato salad in spite of forgetting several ingredients: celery was a good addition, and it always helps when it's been in the cold for a day or two.

There is a decided lack of green in that salad, because I forgot the gherkins.

Made much less cookies than I wanted to.

My poor sister was actually ill during Christmas, so almost nothing went as planned, and our Christmas stretched over several days, but it was quite fine in the end. We did not decorate a tree, did not sing, and put the usual Bible reading from Luke together from memory, which made it all the more poignant.
The sermon did not give me much this year, but we sang the two best Czech Christmas songs. One is so popular that it's an unofficial Czech Christmas anthem (seriously: last year at an Advent concert, people stood up to sing it), the other is almost virtually unknown outside of church circles. Both are medieval.
You see, medieval Christmas songs are what I grew up with. Listening to an LP. And look, one of the tracks is up on YouTube now!

It's not my favourite, but the whole album is my favourite Christmas album. I already wanted to share last year, but it was nowhere to be found, so yay!

My friend gave me a fabulous scarf. I gave her The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I have yet to read it myself, but I've heard only good things about it.
We visited grandma as usual, and she filled us with food as usual. This time, I made use of my new camera and took photos of objects in her flat, things I've always been looking at there and never thought of photographing.
My favourite is this little glass monkey. Well, it used to be a monkey: it used to have a tail, once, I'm told. I'm told that when one of my sisters was very small, she somehow bit off the tail, and now the tail is lying on the bottom of the glass and the monkey is an ape.

It's the same word in Czech. Well, there is a special word for ape, but most people in everyday setting don't distinguish between them, even less so than in English. It makes the whole Librarian business in Discworld even more fun.

How are you spending New Year’s?

I spent the night with my sister, her husband and a bunch of their friends, like last year: singing and prayer (which I unfortunately missed this year, in part due to the water disaster mentioned in the previous post) and of course good food, and games! Dixit’s the best game ever, but I don't have a picture.

There is a terrace on top of the house they live in that makes for good fireworks watching. And I finally have a camera that sort of photographs them.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

I don’t phone much. Almost not at all. Probably my mom or my sister; those are the two I am on the phone with most often.

What was the best book you read?

Huh. Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Elliott? That did blow my mind, although not quite in the “the world’s never going to be the same” way...

And speaking of medieval English, Pearl is quite beautiful, and so well written.

It's school-related books that spring to mind, because my leasure readings were usually things I've read before. And fanfiction - there's some awesome stuff out there, but you have to wade through a lot of not-so-good. My favourite from this year, which is definitely reaching book proportions by now, is probably the stories Wholmes Productions are putting out.

Did you fall in love in 2013?

I don’t think so...

What was your favourite TV show?

I don’t have TV, so I catch up with them where and how I can, and Doctor Who remains my favourite, even though I admit the quality is variable. I enjoy it the most because I tend to like the thinking behind it.
Besides that, I basically discovered that I like series that have self-contained episodes. Sci-fi and detective series fit the bill most often for some reason.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

What did you want and get?

Honey. :D
 

What did you want and not get?

Doctor Who DVDs for Christmas, but there’s no complaint whatsoever, because instead, my whole family bought me a ticket for an Ennio Morricone concert this February!
 

I'm not showing you where exactly my seat is, but for that huge arena, it's pretty close!

What were your favourite films of this year?

Smoke Signals. That did blow my mind in the “the world’s never going to be the same” way, so much so that anything else I can come up with pales in comparison.

Go and see Smoke Signals. It’s much less of what you’d expect it to be, and all it should be. Huh, I guess I’ve just come up with a sort of my own definition of an outstanding film or something...

This never fails to crack me up. :-)
And the ending always blows my mind.

Spring, Once Upon A Time In The West, and so on: a wrap-up post

The recent weeks were... I don't even know what. Frustrating for sure, because it's April already and there had been no Spring to speak of until about Monday. I also missed Easter Sunday service. That's really frustrating, and I thank everyone who wrote wonderful Easter posts on their blogs, because I fairly lived by those in these recent days, even if I did not comment. I think you'll know who you are...

As I said, though, Spring's finally, finally here. The sun's shining and the blackbirds are singing their syrinxes off.


I've been to the National Theatre. The National Theatre is a perfect example of squeezing as much as possible from as little as possible. It was built from money raised by popular collections, on a plot by the river that looks very romantic nowadays but was probably a low-rate spot back then. And small. It seemed to us as if the stage was bigger than the auditory, and we sat high above it and it gave my sister vertigo.
My Little Black Dress got another outing, the excitement of which was kind of ruined by the heinous weather and badly fitting shoes (a case of "they fit all right when I bought them, and never since").

The play was awesome, though.


In other news, my ooold computer finally died on me (as in, it kept hiccupping while doing the most basic things, and finally certain things stopped working), so now I have a new computer that Father's had in works for a long time now. The new computer is so, so much faster. And so, so much quieter. The old one was somewhere between 8 to 12 years old, though with upgrades...


I finally, after a very, very long time, made it to an editorial meeting of our youth magazine again. Nearly everyone in the "editorial board" is from Prague or studies in Prague, except me, so I have not been able to attend for a long time, and it was another frustrating thing, being in touch with these people only through the internet.



The last post still remains unfinished. And I realise I must have forgotten to inform some of the last blogger awards nominees...


Best school quote of the week: "You should not be surprised by American hypocrisy. America has the greatest ideals, and therefore also the greatest hypocrisy."

Apologies to my American readers. The man who said that is American, too.


And I have only finished a single Historical Sew Fortnightly item so far, and that one a bit late. Item to come.


The most exciting thing for now: Once Upon A Time In The West in cinema! Sunday evening. I had not been able to just let something roll for a long, long time. I needed that. I love the music. I cried at the end, as always. (It's beautiful in that very raw Western way.)

Here's an iconic costume-related scene that may explain at least part of it.

Hostinec U Kamenného stolu ("The Stone Table Inn", 1948)

Back when I was writing my posts for the Going Through the Eras event, I wanted to write about this film; it's definitely my favourite 1940s film, and one of my favourite films of all times.
But it's quite impossible to capture its awesomeness while tellling it in English.
Based on a book by Karel Poláček, one of the great writers of the interwar era (the book was written during the war, and published under his friend's name, because Poláček was Jewish), it contains colourful characters and fantastic humour that works with language to such an extent that I can't translate it. At. All. It's not just word play; it uses every advantage you can gain from speaking Czech, using formal and functional features of Czech that do not exist in English.
So that's why I only show you pictures, a poor substitute for the real awesomeness. I tried telling some of the story back then, but soon realised that it only sounded weird when I tried to capture the fun without being able to convey its true nature...
It's the last great old comedy, with great actors old and young. It has all the perks of 1930s-1940s comedies, without being plagued by the era's somewhat weaker spots. No comedy of errors and mistaken identities (my personal pet peeve with the era). Both the way it is shot and the story seem more natural than most of the earlier films I've seen: more of it is shot on location, and the outrageous things that happen feel rather like character quirks taken to the extreme than like plot devices.

Let me just say this for the story: this film also contains what I think is the best love confession in the history of cinema. Superbly delivered by Rudolf Hrušínský, who I think was the best actor in the history of Czech cinema.