Rachel with an E

Fabulous Frauen – Fashion at the Hamburg Museum of Fine Art – Part One

As always I cannot say ‘no’ to visiting either a good local museum and if that local museum just happens to have a fashion exhibition on when I visit I am doubly excited. This happened last month when I visited Hamburg to meet friends and spent a morning in the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (Museum of Fine and Applied Arts – I think!). This museum had a summer exhibition entitled ‘Dressed. 7 Frauen – 200 Jahre Mode‘ or ‘Dressed. 7 Frauen – 200 Years of Fashion’ (the exhibition closed on 28th August), which told the story of fashion from the past 200 years through the clothing of seven women either from Hamburg or other parts of Germany.

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Heroine’s of History – Hope MacDougall and the Dunollie Collection

Last month I had the great good fortune to be back in Scotland for my summer holidays. As you may know Scotland, along with Italy, are my two favourite places on Earth. I have a deep love and affinity for Scotland through both ancestral links on both sides of my family and an appreciation of the beauty of Scotland and it’s culture, people, and landscapes. 

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Irish Fashion Friday – Fashionable Females; The Attire of Pioneering Irish Female University Students

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As the beginning of the academic year fast approaches students are once again thinking of what to wear to university. To those who are inclined to vintage inspired academic looks then looking back at what past female graduates wore might prove some inspiration for your sartorial choices for this coming academic year. Alas I am not attending a university at a red-brick university strewn with autumnal leaves but can live vicariously through others! One of my favourite clothing websites Miss. Patina even has a new section on their website inspired by Edwardian inspired academic looks! These looking Victorian, not Edwardian, ladies are the ‘Nine Graces’ the first nine ladies to graduate from any university in Ireland in 1884. If it wasn’t because of these women I would not be a 21st century female graduate!

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Invigorating Inveraray – Inveraray Castle – Part One

On my most recent trip to Scotland (two trips in one year!) I finally got to visit Inveraray Castle. I had been to Inveraray twice previously and either the castle wasn’t open as it was out of season or I was passing on my way through to Glasgow. This time I was determined to visit the castle and it did not disappoint. Inveraray Castle is set on the breath-taking shores of Loch Fyne and is home to the Dukes of Argyll; head of the Clan Campbell. Inveraray Castle is one of the earliest built in the gothic revival style of the early eighteenth century with building on the castle starting in 1743.

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Addressing Dress – A kind of resource for all things Irish Dress

Pictured above is perhaps the most famous Irish designer of the twentieth century, Sybil Connolly. Famous for dressing Princess Grace of Monaco and Jackie Kennedy amongst a plethora of famous clients. Connolly made her mark in the 1950s and 1960s with her dresses made out linen, tweed, and wool and highly influenced by imagery of traditional Ireland of cottages, shawlie women, the rugged west of Ireland, and other associated images.

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