Ballet Russes

While I'm not particularly fond of waking up at 4 in the morning, or spending 9 hours on a bus in one day, and I'm not the biggest fan of costume textiles, or Canberra to be perfectly honest, I was quite a fan of the Ballet Russes exhibition at Canberra's National Gallery that i visited two weeks ago with uni. The exhibition was a collection of 150 beautiful costumes and accessories from The Russian Ballet of the early 20th century to mark the 100th anniversary of the Ballet Russes. The costumes were each intricately designed and hand constructed to tell a story and create a character of the dance for which it was created. To give a small taste of such works of art, I have selected three costumes that caught my eye throughout the exhibiton.

The first costume is from the ballet L'Oiseau de Feu (the firebird), and is the 'Dress for a Member of Kostchei's Entourage'. The costume is made up of a mustard coloured skirt and a cream beaded and embroidered blouse. I chose it because I was particularly fond of the beading on the blouse. The jacket was designed by Aleksandr Golovin and Leon Bakst in 1910 and the skirt was designed by Natalia Goncharova in 1926 and was worn by the members of the evil wizard Kostchei's entourage of 'monster guards'. Kostchei resides in an ancient castle, when Prince Ivan falls in love with one of the princesses enslaved by him and tries to follow her into the castle, Kostchei and the entourage attack him. Eventually the Prince is helped by a firebird  he had earlier freed and they destroy the wizard and his brigade. The garment is for "monster" guards and therefore lacks colour, with fairly monotone creams and yellows, the only colour added in the red and blue beading. The cream colours give it a slight peasant look which is fitting as they are merely guards & slave to the evil wizard. It utilises rayon, synthetic fabric, metallic lace, cotton, gelatine sequins, glass beads, plastic jewels and paint, and employs techniques such as embroidery, beading and applique, making it quite intricate and unique.

'Dress for a Member of Kostchei's Entourage', sourced from http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/BalletsRusses/Default.cfm?IRN=107276&BioArtistIRN=11774&MnuID=3&GalID=7&ViewID=2

The second costume that i chose was the 'costume for a male' from the 1933 ballet Les Présages. It was designed by Andre Masson and is a long dress jacket made of felt and cotton with a zig zagged bloc colour pattern in blue and maroon. I liked this design as it was very different to the rest, quite simple with an edgy, sci fi feel that seems to translate even to today's fashion. The ballet told the story of humanity's struggle with destiny, with themes of 1930's futurism, thus the futuristic sci fi suits. The suits are so so classic that just by looking at them you can identify them with so many references through time such as star trek and the double breasted coat or the trench coat, showing how inspiring these times were and how the basic ideas of aesthetics may have altered through time but can still link quite easily back to each other.

My final, and favourite choice, is the dress for the 'Blue God' from Le Dieu Bleu. This was designed my M. Landoff and Marie Muelle and made from silk and satin with heavy embroidery of a lotus flower in a gold braided thread, studding, beading and applique. This garment is absolutely, elaborately beautiful. The ballet was set in mythical india, the dress is worn by the 'blue god' who plays the important role in the ballet by bringing together the torn apart lovers by subduing the monsters. It has a stiff colonial skirt and pink and white gelatin sequin-like disks  around the hem. The heavy embellishment immitates hindu sculpturism and the stiffness in the skirt maintains a sculptured pose even while dancing. The dancer - Nijinsky - wore blue makeup to complete the image of the blue god and some of this has actually smudged on the costume, which i think is a wonderful piece of first hand history.

'Dress for the Blue God' sourced from http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/BalletsRusses/Default.cfm?IRN=76761&BioArtistIRN=19455&MnuID=3&GalID=12&ViewID=2

Favourites

I am a big blog fan. I recently tried to cull the amount of fashion blogs that I follow because I simply didn't have time to read them all. I managed to get them down to about 30. So, as you can imagine, my next blog task of choosing my favourite three, is not so easy. But, through a laborious process of elimination, I have come to my conclusions.

The Sartorialist, of course, will have to be my first. Scott Schuman pioneered fashion photography with his digital camera and blog when he started photographing fashionable city dwellers and fashion show goers in the likes of New York, Paris, London and Milan, and putting them on his blog 'The Sartorialist'. I love this blog as it is so original, and while there are many with the same idea now, this will always be the first. I also love it because of his subject choice, his muses all have their own interesting style and they are all oh-so glamourous, who doesn't love that? Mainly, I love this blog because his photos not only show us individual styles, but embody the different culture and style of these fashion saturated cities, giving fashion enthusiasts like myself a taste of the places we are aspiring to reach.

On the streets of Paris by The Sartorialist

Anna Dello Russo by The Sartorialist

On the streets of Milan by the Sartorialist

My second is Fashion Gone Rogue, which I referred to in my previous blog as displaying many of the crucial elements of good blogging. Joanna blogs mainly about high end runway shows and editorials. This is one of my favourite blogs as she writes both critically and informatively about all aspects of these shows and shoots, the clothes, designers, models, photos, photographers, critics and audience, so is a great blog for those who wish to be well versed in all ways of the fashion world. She also writes a lot of posts, which is great, and covers a lot of my favourite designers like Givenchy, Alexander McQueen and Valentino.  

Alexander McQueen's Fall 2011 Collection posted by Fashion Gone Rogue

Abbey Lee wears Versace posted by Fashion Gone Rogue

Givenchy's Fall 2011 collection posted by Fashion Gone Rogue 

Last but not least is fashionising.com's Fashion Blog. This blog makes it into the top three because blogger Tania Braukamper really knows her stuff. Tania is from Melbourne, making it the only Australian blog in my top three, which is great because she is posting exactly what is relevant to Australian fashion at the time. She posts several times a day but always has something interesting to say. She is another who posts about all aspects of the fashion world; my favourite designers, runway shows, editorials, the models and the critics. She fills her posts with hyperlinks and beautiful images so that you're never left wanting more, and has a bundle of 'Fashion Blog Categories' - Clothing & Accessories, Fashion Trends, Hair & Hairstyles, Industry News, Make-up & Beauty, Photo shoots & Catwalks and Shoes - so that no matter what you are looking for, you're bound to find it! 

Magdalena on Runway for Elie Saab, posted by Tania Braukamper

Karlie Kloss photographed backstage by Simon Ackerman, Posted by Tania Braukamper

Burberry's Spring 2011 cropped biker jacket shot by Viktor Vautier, posted by Tania Braukamper

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Crib Notes

What makes a good blog post? An ironic topic for my first ever blog post, but lets give it a go. 

Steve Wheeler, a fellow blogspot-er thinks that the most crucial elements to a good post are a snappy heading - "provocative and intriguing" - to draw in your readers, as well as well written, informative but brief content - make your point and stay there to keep your readers interested without making them feel like they're reading an essay. He also recommends useful hyperlinks - to take your readers deeper - and relevant images - for those visual people who aren't going to sit and read a paragraph if they can't look at something pretty while they do it. 

As I scrolled through my feeds, a few of these crucial elements jumped out in the first line of this post by Fashion Gone Rogue

"Lions, panthers and bears, oh my - 

Givenchy's fall 2011 collection gave way to a plethora of prints for the new season" 

 -Catchy headline then straight to the point, top of the class!

Jomar Lipon blogged that 'Keywords' are the most important thing to remember when posting, keywords being the words that the people interested in your topic would be typing into their search engines. A valid point I guess, considering no matter how good your blog post (<-- keyword) is, what does it matter if nobody's going to find it?

While these are all winning tips, the best tip I have found so far is one raised by 'ProBlogger's' Darren Rowse  in Ten Tips For Writing A Blog Post with his point number 6 - "Write with passion!".

While this may be my first blog, I have been subscribing religiously to many for years, and in my opinion, this is the make or break of a blog post. Be yourself. Speak your mind. Your personality is what sets you apart from everyone else, and thats what your readers want to see in your writing. 

So, in conclusion, and in answer to the question 'What makes a good blog post?'

You're most important tools in blogging are:

Passion & Personality.