Re: [h-cost] red for marriage dress
Somehow I never got the original thread of this conversation--just two follow-ons--so I'm confused. Ann Wass -Original Message- From: Patricia Dunham chim...@ravensgard.org To: Historical Costume h-cost...@indra.com Sent: Tue, Nov 13, 2012 9:32 pm Subject: Re: [h-cost] red for marriage dress Nothing I've found on-line indicates any academic background at all for Ms Simeti. She has written 4 books, mostly based on her life in Sicily with her Italian husband, including 2 cookbooks. chimene On Nov 13, 2012, at 11:29 AM, snsp...@aol.com wrote: The statement comes from Mary Taylor Simeti's book, Travels with a Medieval Queen and is found on page 98. Nancy ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
[h-cost] red bridal gowns and book author
Yes, Mrs. Simeti does not have a scholarly background, but as someone who has been up to her eyebrows in 12th-century Sicily for over a decade now I can tell you that she has read a lot of the basic background information. This is what makes her books so confusing. Anything I might use from her books is double-checked; hence, my question about red bridal dresses. I, too, am reading, on-line, that medieval wedding dresses were simply one's best dress. There are also the statements that blue was a preferred color but without quoting sources. Nancy ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
[h-cost] Discount copies of some of our books available
We got what was for us a large return, so we now have slightly dinged copies of all our titles *except* Bustle Fashions 1885-1887 and Directoire Revival Fashions 1888-1889. They are for sale at a discount, on our website only. See: http://www.lavoltapress.com/LinksPage.htm Fran Lavolta Press Books on making historic clothing www.lavoltapress.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] red bridal gowns and book author
I cannot answer the question of red wedding dresses in medieval Sicily. But i would like to note that Sicily might be considered something of a special case. Sicily was settled by Phoenicians during the 10th through 8th c. BCE, and by 750 BCE by Greeks, who absorbed the indigenous Sicani and Siculi people. Carthaginian cities remained in the west of the island until the Roman Punic Wars, the Carthaginians being descendants of the Phoenicians. But even after Roman conquest the language was never completely Latinized, and Greek remained the primary language for most of the population. Various Germanic tribes invaded in the 5th c. but the Eastern Roman Empire (known to us as Byzantium) took control of Sicily in the 6th c. - also controlled much of Southern and Eastern Italy. Settlements still spoke Sicilian Greek long after Byzantine rule was driven out. Some scholars have argued that most Sicilians are descendants of Greeks, or at the very least are part Greek. The Fatimids began invading Sicily from North Africa during the 6th century, a mixed group of Arabs, Berbers, Andalusians, and others. They eventually conquered the entire island and established the Emirate of Sicily by the beginning of the 10th c. with Muslim culture and the Arabic language asserting a strong influence. A particular languge developed, Siculo-Arabic, commonly spoken in Sicily until the end of the 13th century, although definite linguistic influences remain. Yet during this time, a large Greek speaking population remained. The Franco-Normans followed the Arabs, and during their rule Arabic and Greek continued to be spoken there. The society was composed of Normans and Lombards, Muslims, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Greeks, and Roman Catholics working together. During this time there were also Provencal and Catalan cultural and linguistic influences. Sicily remained an independent kingdom until eventually it became part of the Spanish kingdom of Aragon in 1409 - in 1492 Ferdinand of Spain decreed the expulsion of all Sicilian Jews. It was again an independent kingdom from the beginning of the 18th c until 1816, when it became part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with the merger of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples in 1816. It remained independent until the unification of Italy in the 1860. But the Sicilians were not really culturally fully Italian. And they considered the unification of Italy to be the conquest of the south by the north. And many Sicilians continued to be rebels and separatists into the 20th c. When Italy became a Republic at the end of WWII, Sicily was one of five regions given special status as an autonomous region. Linguists today say the Sicilian language, Sicilianu, is different enough from standard Italian to be considered a separate language, not merely a dialect. I mention all this because traditions in Sicily - which reflect Greek and Arabic influence to this day - will not be identical to those the rest of Western Europe. So, did medieval Sicilian women really wear red wedding dresses? I don't know, but i suspect that information about other medieval European cultures will not fully apply to Sicilians. Anahita ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
[h-cost] Brides wearing red
I wouldn't rely on the author's credentials, whether impressive or not, but on the information in the book itself, which is what counts. That said, brides wore their best dress is a shorthand comment used for many historic periods. It conveys that wedding dresses in periods before 1920 or so did not follow a common modern custom of buying an expensive dress in a style not wearable for anyone but a bride. As far as I know, there is a very long-standing custom of people who could afford to do so buying new clothes for weddings, and comparatively expensive and fashionable ones for their social station, rather than being married in clothes they already had, even best clothes. It's just that the new clothes were in a style they could wear after the wedding. I also don't know that any one color was in long-standing fashion before the Victorian and later custom of wearing white. Note that before overall dry cleaning, white silks were status fabrics because they became grubby quickly and were hard to clean, though they could be dyed. Fran Lavolta Press Books on historic clothing www.lavoltapress.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
[h-cost] Find out why I use LinkedIn
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[h-cost] Find out why I use LinkedIn
LinkedIn I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Kelly Kelly Cercone Overhire Stitcher at Center Theatre Group Greater Los Angeles Area Confirm that you know Kelly Cercone: https://www.linkedin.com/e/6o2l73-h9jceoqj-4j/isd/9595515137/btSLpRqy/?hs=falsetok=0Q5cxGIaj84Bw1 -- You are receiving Invitation to Connect emails. Click to unsubscribe: http://www.linkedin.com/e/6o2l73-h9jceoqj-4j/qo9ky5QZxWMGHXat1U9lBblZWe0Zp7AhiG7UwR/goo/h-costume%40mail%2Eindra%2Ecom/20061/I3206780306_1/?hs=falsetok=25qc3mRpX84Bw1 (c) 2012 LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
