Sansone Designs Studio

05/26/2026

05/26/2026

Welcome to Day 9 of our 10 day anniversary celebration! Our 2nd most popular match over our first year is:
Feathers & Fashion (395)
Beryl-spangled Tanager meets 1957 Spain

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The Beryl-spangled Tanager (Tangara nigroviridis) is a colourful tanager of the Andean cloud forests. Its range is from Venezuela to Bolivia. Photo: James Ownby.
from Birds

Evening dress; San Sebastián, Spain; 1957
Flocked shantung
Creator: Cristóbal Balenciaga
Fashion House: Balenciaga
Photographer: Manuel Outumuro
Google Arts & Culture from Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa CBM 2000.60

Feathers & Fashion #498 (k401)
(formerly 395)

05/26/2026

Youngster Miss 'Madeleine' Marie Julie Pauline Bovier (born in Brussels, Belgium in 1896) poses for her father, photographer Leon Bovier around 1900/01. This turn-of-the-last century portrait is titled 'Portrait of Madeleine Bovier as a Toddler', and is housed in the FOMU-Photo Museum Antwerp. Equal parts character and mischief!

I believe this image was featured in Early Gaze: Unseen Photography from the 19th Century by Tamara Berghmans and Ingrid Leonard.

05/26/2026

05/26/2026

05/13/2026

Greetings, kind readers! An absolutely spot on cream silk and lace Victorian wedding dress with 2 bodices & 2 belts, c.1865. English; maker unknown. The link will take you to many gorgeous close ups. Treat yourself to a beauty break--https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/?objects%5Bquery%5D=wedding%20dresses&objects%5Bpage%5D=4
Powerhouse Museum

05/13/2026

Sometime in the second half of the 1880s the photography studio of Fayette W. Knight in Greenville, Texas shot this half length portrait of a young fellow.
This is a nice look at how a man of some, but not major means would have dressed. His frock coat is nicely cut. He wears a turned down collar, something. Just coming into greater use, and a narrow ribbon necktie. His waistcoat is where things are a bit less than ideal. The fitting there is off creating a visible gap between the waistcoat hem and his trousers. If it were correctly fitted there would be no gap, just a smooth line over the body.
Of course the other thing that marks this as notable and somewhat unusual is the length of his hair to our eyes. While sorter hair was certainly the norm elsewhere in Texas and further west in the United States, longer hair was still fairly common.
This young man may have been a rancher or cattleman wearing his Sunday best.

05/13/2026

05/13/2026

In the hope of banishing bilious and nervous disorders, I have treated my Fæcebük feed to a purgative. Not Beecham’s Pills - I fear one in particular of the nauseant features is far beyond the help of mere soft soap and ginger - but a more surgical solution. I have been suffering not merely from TDD (Trump Depressive Disorder) but in general from CARS (Current Affairs Rage Syndrome.)

I have, it so happens, a qualification in political and social history. I ought to be interested, oughtn’t I? Nothing I studied all those years ago prepared me for the 💩show of today, though. Not even Margaret Thatcher. So in the pursuit of some objectivity I have Unfollowed that which makes me want to sit and weep impotently, and even Those Things I Can Do Something About have been given a thirty day spell of gardening leave.

You see, I’d noticed I very much more enjoyed Instagram, on which I follow only innocuous historical, arty and naturey accounts. So my two-pennorth will be missing from current affairs accounts, and nobody will shed a tear, least of all me. Meanwhile, I sincerely hope I can find some more trivial, unworldshaking, slow-burn stimulation. Not fluff. Not cute kittens. Not me. Just, maybe, lots of stuff about fossils, and seaweed, and painting. Oh, and Mike Dennis Crafts, that sort of thing. Italian chefs’ grandmothers. Surrealist art. Rather than the surreal horror of you-know-who and his cadre of gollums.