Over The Top?

[Rikki]

I hope you all don't think I'm too crazy with my fashion (fetish) choices: full skirts, petticoats and now a 6-boned crinoline hoopskirt. It is just such a delight for me to be super-femmed and those shapes I find just that. As those of you who chat with me know, I have no desire to go "out" en femme, so when I'm home I love the feeling of being a 50's housewife and now an 1860's Dickens lady or Southern Belle. Although, with my figure, I'm hardly a "belle"!!

Anyway, peace to all and best wishes for a perfect New Year.

Rikki

[Anthony Simon]

...my fashion (fetish) choices...now a 6-boned crinoline hoopskirt. It is just such a delight for me to be super-femmed and those shapes I find just that...now an 1860's Dickens lady or Southern Belle...

I think delight does just about cover how I feel when I dress up. That's just me trying to be my conception of how I think I would look if I were a GG. But the way you dress does strike a chord in me - and this Southern Belle look just hits some deep fantasy thing I've got.

I don't know that it's particularly the Southern Belle, so much as the general period enormous femininity. I mean I can remember, when I was younger, wanting to dress up like that - and, evidently, it's still in there.

[Davita]

I thought the crinnies went under the top? Ain't they that way in your picture?

Girl, you know I appreciate any fem look with a petticoat. Even if it's a hoop. You look wonderful and I certainly understand.

[Noeleena]

Hi,

Im an Edwardian woman ,

plus Renaissance and that is far closer to how i prefer to dress, 1400 -1700 German style,
And we with in the month will be dressed for a week of both men and women about 250 of us reinacting those times, for myself as a wench & Chatelaine Lady of the Castle and i do fly over seas dressed that way,

So what period do you dress in, looks lovely

...noeleena...

[Carol Ann]

Rikki dear,
You know my fetish, I love dressing as a teenager of the mid 50's

[Eileen (SO)]

I always loved the costumes in movies like 'Gone With the Wind', equally love that the fashions are no longer in vogue. Can't imagine how life was back then, wearing such outfits day to day. As a little girl, imagining that all I have to do is just sit and look pretty as all the local beau's fawned over me. Just a fantasy, though.
Highly impractical, but I see how the style is something to be enjoyed. Where the heck to you get the dress anyway? Certainly not at JCPenney's.

Eileen

[Judith(SO)]

I was having a bit of a smile to myself thinking about the exquisite fashions of the Gone With The Wind era, and when my hubby and I were first dating. He was still in his apprenticeship and I was training as a nurse, so neither of us had money to buy a car, and we used to go everywhere on his old motorcycle.
I was just imagining how I would have looked on the back of his motorcycle in that type of skirt, and what they used to wear underneath, especially to achieve the 18 inch waist look, wouldn't have been that comfortable. Going along the road I'd have looked like a yacht with it's spinnaker in full flight, in that skirt.

My favourite has always been the Flappers look of the 1920's/30's. When I was a girl my Nana gave me some of her old Flappers dresses, which I still have today, albeit they would probably be a bit of a snug fit now, but I loved those dresses with the beads and strings, and how the dress moved when one shook and shimmied, and the cut really accentuates a young girl's figure, but still with modesty. The pattern is so simple and can really be adapted so easily to all the dresses of that style.

Judith.

[Rikki]

Ladies,

I enjoyed hearing your remarks. Eileen, the dress came from an ebay seller who makes Civil War and Dickens costumes and the hoop crinoline/petticoat came from a reinactor's sutler (supply) store online.

If you were a young girl in the late 50's I can't imagine how you could have not loved being dressed pretty and ultra-femme every day.

Happy New Year all,

Rikki

[Sarah Beth]

I have always enjoyed seeing others dressed in the hoops and crinolines and all the petticoats. I don't know if its a sytle for me or if I could pull it off. I have found over the years that my dresses have gotten longer. I still have one of the first dresses I ever bought, it was mini and now the last three things I bought were all maxi lenght.

Whatever style someone chooses for themselves, is the style for them. It doesn't matter what other people think its what you thing. I for would like to see some pics of you in the hoops. If I would wear them might make me look like I had hips for a change.

[Anne Bonny]

I'm 3% neanderthal but clan of the cave bear doesn't do it for me. I would not enjoy being dragged about by my hair or having a bone in my nose but whatever floats your boat. I think it is all in what you like, the whys are unique to your noggen. Actually that long dress is pretty and I am sure it would be fun to try sometime but I like modern popular women's styles that the average women around me are wearing today. You enjoy period clothing and there is not anything wrong with that at all, in fact there are no rules are there? Enjoy, Anne

[Kelly]

For those of us that are part timers it is all about living the fantasy.

I am happy you can live yours.

Kelly

[Eileen (SO)]

I recall dressing pretty for special occasions, Church and family parties. In public school, the girls wore skirts, Go-Go boots were the fad then. Started wearing jeans in High School. It's fun to dress up now and then, too impractical for everyday.

Rikki, you reminded me of a cute story. This was before I knew of my husband's hidden desires. We were visiting a Civil War reenactment camp at a local forest preserve. There were plenty of women that followed along with the Armies back then, so I was talking with one of the wives in camp. That's when I noticed what seemed to be a man in period women's dress. I had never seen a CD before other than in movies. Asking the lady with whom I was talking with about what I just saw, she said with a slight eye roll, "Oh, that's Roberta." making the quote signs with her fingers.
Not a reenacter, a hanger on, Roberta seemed to be having a fun time running around in her 1860's dress. Even the hair style looked right.
I thought that it might be fun to do that myself, dressing up for a certain era.

Eileen

[Anne Bonny]

It would be indeed. Though I wonder about some period dresses... what happens when you need to pee or the opposite - and in a hoop skirt - waka-waka! How in the hell do ya get through the door let alone into a public stall with the pipes and wall immediately behind. I suppose it all skwooshes but your skirts probably rub against the disgusting walls with dried urine splatter on them unless of course you use the lady's loo tuning out the shrieks of protest! And don't even start to think about those disgusting port-a-lets used by everyone I have refused to even use them sometimes they are so horribly disgusting inside!

[Rikki]

Eileen,

That is a cute story! I have indeed thought about how the folks at reinactments might take to me showing up in my hoops. I know that the guys with their guns and canons might react a bit "redneck" about having a CD'er in their midst.

Anne, "going" in a hoopskirt or even a square dance petticoated skirt can be interesting, especially in a yucky-pottie. And since a porta-john is about 4 foot square and my hoop has a 5 foot bottom diameter, there would need to be some serious sqeezing or just drop the hoop outside and slip back into it when done!

All the best,
Rikki

[Eileen (SO)]

Part of the fascination in dressing of a certain era is learning the history of how people functioned at the time. One early scene in 'Gone With the Wind' has all the young belles retiring for a midafternoon nap. Living in the deep South, well before A/C, women would undress in a room full of open windows. This kept them out the high heat of the day and allowed some rest from their restrictive clothing, and major potty breaks.

Those days when a two hole outhouse was considered fancy, the society ladies had an assistant to use a chamber pot. The old dress styles along with our modern conveniences makes for new problems. I always wondered how the ladies ever sat down in a chair? Doesn't the hoop raise your skirt to show off everything underneath? Guess that's what long legged bloomers were for.

Eileen