Redressing history
Heritage Square Museum provides a perfect setting to exhibit fashions of another time
By Karol Ann Bergman 04/09/2009
Ihave never attended a garden tea party but have long yearned to do so. The miniature finger foods, flower displays, delicate decorations and — most importantly — the fashionably adorned women have always had a special allure for me.
Maybe this love of afternoon tea is ingrained in women from an early age. Who doesn’t remember sitting down with their stuffed animals and cabbage-patch dolls while dressed in their best tutu and mother’s high heels for an afternoon of fake tea and scones?
Not long ago, I based an entire spring fashion line on a vintage photograph that I’d found of an afternoon tea in a glamorous London garden. So you can imagine my delight when I received the invitation to the Heritage Square Museum Vintage Fashion Show and Afternoon Tea. Incredibly, though, I found myself completely stumped on what to wear.
After rummaging through my wardrobe a few times, and finally forcing myself to make a decision between my vintage Zodiac boots or my friend’s strappy heels, I wound up choosing an old but still great soft yellow cotton gauze and lace hook-and-eye dress, a newly acquired stark-white Target cardigan, which I promptly dyed at home using tea to make it less Target-looking, my favorite light grey knee-highs and my trustworthy Zodiac boots.
After all that was over, I fueled up at Jones Coffee, then met up with the two ladies I knew who would appreciate an afternoon tea as much as I — my aunt and my boyfriend’s mother.
The show offered depictions of dress from the 1880s through the 1940s, along with delicious finger foods and tea from Passion Fruit Catering. Right behind me sat friends from the catty Red Hat Society. But stealing the show were the men and women strolling about the Heritage Square grounds, dressed to the nines in their historically accurate reproductions and true vintage gowns and leisure suits. It is hard to not look regal while shimmying across the Heritage Square lawn in a wine-colored tea gown and bustle from the 1890s.
It was a brilliant afternoon spent perusing the fashions of old — on the catwalk as well as inside Perry Mansion. We discussed in detail the various intricate designs of vintage garb while sitting in the shade on the Heritage Square Museum lawn and enjoying black-currant scones, iced black-currant tea and orange-flavored water.
If you are interested in vintage clothing and fascinated with times gone by, check out Heritage Square Museum online at www.heritagesquare.org, call (323) 225-2700, or stop by the museum at 3800 Homer St., Los Angeles. n
Special thanks to Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes, the Costumers Guild West, Folkwear, Davis Blue Print Co., Passion Fruit Catering and all of the lovely volunteers who modeled to help make this event come to life.
Write to karolbergman@yahoo.com.
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