dress
1930ish embroidered jade satin dress made to attend Classic Movies presented by Nick Langdon at the Towe Auto Museum.

Cate and Kim at Towe Auto Museum for Classic Movie night Cate, Kim, and Nick Langdon at Towe Auto Museum for Classic Movie night

Items constructed for this costume:
front

Dress

Embroidered jade polyester satin evening dress with left side zipper, lining, V neckline, cap sleeves, skirt yolk, center back skirt pleat, self fabric sash.

80th Anniversary pattern "Misses' evening gown with sleeve variation."

2007 Pattern: Simplicity 3619

left back right

About Classic Movies at the Towe Auto Museum

Occasionally, the Towe Auto Museum shows silent and classic films. The museum houses some vintage automobiles and has a few diaramas. People are welcome to walk the museum and take photos before the films start. It's mostly a casual affair with chairs set up in front of the screen and popcorn and drinks available. But it's more fun to dress up for the evening. Several of us have gone to the films dressed in either 1920s or 1930s depending on the year of the film.

The host of the classic films, Nick Langdon, is always dapper in a tuxedo and his program would be appreciated by costuming and historical folks. Nick Langdon does a wonderful job presenting the film with background history and/or information about the artist. Usually he'll sing a song from the soundtrack or from the time period of the movie. Often Rebecca Kane or another guest artist will also sing. Dave Moreno puts on a concert of pipe organ music before the classic films. Very well done and thoughtful program.

One of the great things about watching these movies is seeing the people and costumes from the time periods. Instead of just the high fashion plates, there are a variety of people and dress. Not just the same finger wave wig that we usually see for sale nowadays, there were all sorts of hair style variations and hair types. In the movie, "One Night of Love" from 1934, Grace Moore played a young aspiring opera singer. At the opera when the camera panned the audience, there were so many fashions to see. Older women had late 1920s style gowns and the younger women had more up-to-date gowns, but although these were their finest opera clothes, none were as glam as the dresses the stars of the film wore. I had always thought 1930s were more streamlined, but several dresses were surprising like the one with big poufy fluffy sleeves and the one with a giant pleated collar. Their takes on other costumes were also interesting and amusing. The final scene from Madame Butterfly, she wore an asian dress that looked like a shimmery lame dress from a bad science fiction movie with a gigantic collar.

From this movie there were also just daily activities from the time period. When she rushes out of the house, she pulls open a drawer to fetch her gloves and hat. Hat stored in a drawer? If I had been paying more attention, I might have noted the way they wore their hats and carried their bags and shoes. How did I miss looking at shoes?!

Nick Langdon often shows films that are not available on DVD and that probably will not be shown anywhere else on the big screen. And the big screen with the reels being changed and the stars larger than life is really more of an experience. What a great event to dress up... and also be able to bring friends or spouses who might be interested in automobiles.



Completed: January 2008. ~8 hrs