chocolatepot | YES! (Reply)

Finished translating vol. 3 of GdM! It was an interesting ride. Losing those original articles made the plates less useful - I loved getting the information about where the names of styles came from without having to figure out who this or that reference is - and the captions themselves slowly began to be less informative, nattering on about the women being aloof to their lovers with "oh yeah that's a dress" tacked on at the end. But then, in retrospect, the gowns got less trimmed and the different types of dress faded away, really just leaving anglaises and maybe fourreaux. (Speaking of fourreaux, I'm getting more and more convinced that they really are back-lacing gowns.) So they didn't have as much to say. But finally at the end the lover talk slowed down and I started getting close-up looks at hats. So I'm feeling good.

I do wonder why I can't find the original text anywhere for the 3rd and 4th volumes. I even found the plates on ... the Versailles catalogue site? and they had the same collected info from other magazines and the Tableau de Paris. I have to wonder if maybe the magazine itself stopped printing side text? Does that make sense?

Also, everyone's talking about court gowns for Costume College next year - I looked ahead and there are a few cahiers on that towards the end of volume 4. So stay tuned!