Pic of the Week: Pretty Maids all in a Row

This photograph of the bollards that run down 2nd Street SE next to the Adams Building was taken in late 2010.  What caught my eye was how the bollards with just a bit of snow on top reminded me of the paintings of ladies wearing powdered wigs and ruffs, collars, or fichu.

At first I thought of women in Elizabethan England (which makes it amusing since you can see the Folger Shakespeare Library in the back of the photograph).  But I  changed my mind.  I decided that they seemed to look more like what colonial era women like Martha Washington wore because the white collar was not as prominent as the ruffs worn during Queen Elizabeth’s day.

Eleanor Lambert–Empress of Seventh Avenue

… [Eleanor Lambert] realized that the American fashion industry, along with the individual designers deserved to be treated as equals on the world stage. From that moment on, this idea would become her driving passion. (John Tiffany, Eleanor Lambert: Still Here,Pointed Leaf Press, c2011: p.19) On Thursday February 2, 2012 we are hosting a lecture with …

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Through the Lens of Opera

Disregard what you learned from the history books about the first sound movie, first color TV program, first  stereo broadcast….because opera did it first! Some of the first synchronized sound movies were of opera arias shown at the Phono-Cinema-Theatre at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair. A sound movie of the complete opera Faust was released …

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