Bedecking myself in these geegaws

Sometimes there's art. Mostly though I'm just being a silly little guy. Art tag: #my art

[dozydawn]

[redstonedust]

pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.

[bincliff]

hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)

[haemey]

Wikipedia has a list of fashion museums. Unfortunately, the page itself is only available in German, but the introductory paragraph is very short and after that, it's organised by country, and then it's a simple list. If you click on a museum's article, the website is usually linked in the overview table.

[michaela-stirlings]

MY LADY JANE — 1.02 "Wild Thing"

[in-love-with-movies]

Gladiator (2000)

[gigglybumbug]

randomly getting intensely interested in some bullshit like

[vitariesocks]

just received the best text message I’ve ever had. from my mom

[vitariesocks]

2 pics. no caption

[daintyartisan]

High Fashion SpongeBob by WISDOM KAYE (2023)

[ashtrayheart9]

‘The Awakening’. photography, 2024. At the intersection of human condition & science fiction.

@InessRychlik

[badsalmonella]

THIS HAS CAPTIVATED ME BODY AND SOUL WITH IT'S CRAZY DRAMA I'M BEING SOOOO DEAD SERIOUS RN

[spool-of-string]

What’s crazy about Apple TV is that a chunk of the shows on there are about dystopian leadership filled with religious and corporate overtones IE “I pray to the founders…” “praise be to Keir…” and how keeping people in the dark and lying about their reality is the only way to have ultimate control over humans. And this comes from the most dominating tech company in existence. What’s terrible about this is that they are putting out the most interesting compelling and cinematic television there is right now. It’s very conflicting

[badsalmonella]

All of us leaving the theater and being like "ehhh kind of a mixed bag not sure where to land on that one" but agreeing there is like 1 really fire section of the movie is admittedly really funny.

[olvaheiner]

The Odyssey (2026)

[minotauri]

[louder than everyone] MAN I THINK IT DEPENDS!

[badsalmonella]

Man I am SO talkative today I even wanna get into my feelings about ALL THIS but idk if I should idk idk TOO MANY WORDS. UNLESS Y'ALL WANNA GET INTO IT. I CAN GET INTO IT!!! 👀👀👀👀👀

@cherrybearryy

[badsalmonella]

@cherrybearryy First of all ya know what I think I'm too internet discourse brained and assumed you straight up did not like Frankenstein (2025) which you definitely did not say in your initial tags so that's my bad. I'm sorry. BUT THAT'S COOL I THINK WE'RE BOTH ON A SIMILAR WAVE LENGTH!! THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BLAB!!

Okay so first of all when it comes to book to screen adaptations I think I've just accepted a general flattening of the source material is just bound to happen. Like I actually read an interesting paper on how visual medium adaptations of books will ALWAYS flatten it's source material (and I'm sorrrryyyy I cannot link you to this. I read it a couple months ago and NEVER saved it or wrote it down so I'm being bad by not citing my sources 😩 FORGIVE MEEE! </3) not because visual mediums don't have the capacity to be deep or layered and thoughtful, but I think it's just like it's kind of like speaking a different language and people tend to point to really surface level issues like 'oh maybe if we made it into a TV show instead of a movie it wouldn't have to cut out scenes and THEN it would be faithful' when the truth is I think it's more like you're losing out on text as it's own unique medium, the way it can play with narration, the way you get character's inner thoughts and many many other stuff. Like it really is it's own ball game. Can a picture speak a thousand words or is the picture summarizing vast ideas into easy to digest visuals? That's it's own can of worms that can be debated endlessly I'm sure. I won't dwell on that too much SO I CAN STAY FOCUSED.

All this to say I think my mindset (just so you know where I'm coming from here) when I watch a movie adaptation, I tend to personally be more focused on 'okay well what has the director chosen to FOCUS on? What stands out from the text to them? Do I like the way it's in conversation with the text, do I think it can stand on it's own, etc. etc.' Also in the case of things like POTO and ESPECIALLY Frankenstein I find myself interested in how it's in conversation with film. Because I think GDT isn't just thinking of the book when he made that movie, I think he was thinking about the 1931 film. Like this idea of the green monster who only speaks in grunts, I think he's subverting that. So I think that's where this pre-movie hype was coming from. And I'm not saying there haven't been other movies to take the text into account but like clearly there was still a want to see this more humanized take on the creature because I mean there was definitely a significant group of people who welcomed it (or maybe ya know. ppl gonna be thirsty for that sad wet man). Yeah I ultimately agree it's way more simplified than the book, and he's changing a lot to get his desired result and come to his own conclusions and trying to advertised this as 'the faithful adaptation' probably shot itself a bit in the foot because no that's not really what it is. It's HIS take on Frankenstein.

That being said I always like seeing a less monstrous take of the creature on screen, and I think the part that piqued my interest the most is his focus on this theme of the cyclical nature of abuse the way it's passed down through generations, even the casting of Oscar Issac as Victor is something interesting to chew on and I think that is something that is showing signs that this is HIS personal stamp on the narrative. In summary; DEFINITELY flawed but has it's place in the canon for sure, I do think he has an appreciation for the source that has informed the BIG changes he has made. I welcome it in that way.

I bring all this up because the reason why I don't think a POTO adaptation can really be compared is because Phantom has a different reputation in pop culture. The most mainstream version of Erik isn't an old Hollywood monster, it's probably the musical adaptation which is VERY interested in showcasing Erik's humanity. So going with this whole 'but what if the monster deserved your empathy' angle doesn't even work on a subverting cultural expectations level. Like he'd have to be more creative than that to put his stamp on the canon of POTO. And I don't wanna give the dude no credit, like I said he's good at what he does and I think there was love put into Frankenstein (2025), so maybe he DOES have his own spin in mind for POTO but also...............idk man.......he REALLY loves his monster romance narratives. And I say this with love but....he does have a verryyyyy het male approach to it. Sooooooooo when I start thinking about it harder I am skeptical. Again I don't think he'd make something BAD, maybe just be retreading already done ideas.

TLDR; I can extend good will and kindness to a GDT Frankenstein due to film history, I have a harder time doing this for POTO because of the place it holds for us culturally. THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TEDTALK.

[cherrybearryy]

wow thank you for all this! very interesting! i really wasn't thinking too hard before but you're so right when it comes to Erik's most mainstream appearance being one of a sympathetic nature. i mean Erik is sympathetic in almost every single adaptation, it's kind of the point of his character.

i think my main issue with a potential GDT poto adaptation is similar to yours. i mean Elizabeth and the Creature's relationship in Frankenstein 2025 was very Christine/Erik-lite (or at least how the general public seems to view them...), the whole "the monster is actually sympathetic" thing is. like. literally just what The Phantom of the Opera is about.

my MAIN issue with Frankenstein 2025 was how the themes differed immensely (and were almost contradictory) from the original source material. i agree that an adaptation doesn't have to be faithful, and the themes about the cycle of abuse were SUPER strong and well-done. however, it just isn't a faithful adaptation, like at all. i mean the whole "YOU are the monster..." scene was ROUGH lol.

i'm never really a fan of adaptations extending unwavering sympathy to characters who are extremely flawed in the original source material. in Frankenstein 2025 the Creature genuinely does nothing wrong. the ONLY acts of violence he commits is completely justified and i can't say i'm a fan. painting victor as some big bad abuser and the creature as his poor innocent son who did nothing wrong just completely misunderstands the themes of the original book imo. and sidenote i hate what was done with Elizabeth's character but that's a story for another time.

Frankenstein tangent aside, i feel like i just wouldn't be able to trust GDT to write Christine and Erik in a nuanced way. and i know some people like that kind of thing, but certainly not me. i honestly feel like it'd just kinda be similar to the musical, which like you said would be retreading. i'd just be nervous to see what he'd do to raoul, i mean looking at what he did to victor i don't have too much hope.

[badsalmonella]

Man I am SO talkative today I even wanna get into my feelings about ALL THIS but idk if I should idk idk TOO MANY WORDS. UNLESS Y'ALL WANNA GET INTO IT. I CAN GET INTO IT!!! 👀👀👀👀👀

@cherrybearryy

[badsalmonella]

@cherrybearryy First of all ya know what I think I'm too internet discourse brained and assumed you straight up did not like Frankenstein (2025) which you definitely did not say in your initial tags so that's my bad. I'm sorry. BUT THAT'S COOL I THINK WE'RE BOTH ON A SIMILAR WAVE LENGTH!! THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BLAB!!

Okay so first of all when it comes to book to screen adaptations I think I've just accepted a general flattening of the source material is just bound to happen. Like I actually read an interesting paper on how visual medium adaptations of books will ALWAYS flatten it's source material (and I'm sorrrryyyy I cannot link you to this. I read it a couple months ago and NEVER saved it or wrote it down so I'm being bad by not citing my sources 😩 FORGIVE MEEE! </3) not because visual mediums don't have the capacity to be deep or layered and thoughtful, but I think it's just like it's kind of like speaking a different language and people tend to point to really surface level issues like 'oh maybe if we made it into a TV show instead of a movie it wouldn't have to cut out scenes and THEN it would be faithful' when the truth is I think it's more like you're losing out on text as it's own unique medium, the way it can play with narration, the way you get character's inner thoughts and many many other stuff. Like it really is it's own ball game. Can a picture speak a thousand words or is the picture summarizing vast ideas into easy to digest visuals? That's it's own can of worms that can be debated endlessly I'm sure. I won't dwell on that too much SO I CAN STAY FOCUSED.

All this to say I think my mindset (just so you know where I'm coming from here) when I watch a movie adaptation, I tend to personally be more focused on 'okay well what has the director chosen to FOCUS on? What stands out from the text to them? Do I like the way it's in conversation with the text, do I think it can stand on it's own, etc. etc.' Also in the case of things like POTO and ESPECIALLY Frankenstein I find myself interested in how it's in conversation with film. Because I think GDT isn't just thinking of the book when he made that movie, I think he was thinking about the 1931 film. Like this idea of the green monster who only speaks in grunts, I think he's subverting that. So I think that's where this pre-movie hype was coming from. And I'm not saying there haven't been other movies to take the text into account but like clearly there was still a want to see this more humanized take on the creature because I mean there was definitely a significant group of people who welcomed it (or maybe ya know. ppl gonna be thirsty for that sad wet man). Yeah I ultimately agree it's way more simplified than the book, and he's changing a lot to get his desired result and come to his own conclusions and trying to advertised this as 'the faithful adaptation' probably shot itself a bit in the foot because no that's not really what it is. It's HIS take on Frankenstein.

That being said I always like seeing a less monstrous take of the creature on screen, and I think the part that piqued my interest the most is his focus on this theme of the cyclical nature of abuse the way it's passed down through generations, even the casting of Oscar Issac as Victor is something interesting to chew on and I think that is something that is showing signs that this is HIS personal stamp on the narrative. In summary; DEFINITELY flawed but has it's place in the canon for sure, I do think he has an appreciation for the source that has informed the BIG changes he has made. I welcome it in that way.

I bring all this up because the reason why I don't think a POTO adaptation can really be compared is because Phantom has a different reputation in pop culture. The most mainstream version of Erik isn't an old Hollywood monster, it's probably the musical adaptation which is VERY interested in showcasing Erik's humanity. So going with this whole 'but what if the monster deserved your empathy' angle doesn't even work on a subverting cultural expectations level. Like he'd have to be more creative than that to put his stamp on the canon of POTO. And I don't wanna give the dude no credit, like I said he's good at what he does and I think there was love put into Frankenstein (2025), so maybe he DOES have his own spin in mind for POTO but also...............idk man.......he REALLY loves his monster romance narratives. And I say this with love but....he does have a verryyyyy het male approach to it. Sooooooooo when I start thinking about it harder I am skeptical. Again I don't think he'd make something BAD, maybe just be retreading already done ideas.

TLDR; I can extend good will and kindness to a GDT Frankenstein due to film history, I have a harder time doing this for POTO because of the place it holds for us culturally. THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TEDTALK.

[badsalmonella]

You should check out Sydney Zarlengo's video on "Phantom" from a disability perspective on YouTube. Their videos are some of my favorite things right now, and they bring up an aspect of the story that fandom tends to somehow simultaneously overlook and take for granted. Like, the Phantom IS a disabled character--he has a facial difference--and that definitely shapes how the fandom talks about him, for better and (mostly) for worse.

I believe you are talking about this??

I have not seen this and I will DEFINITELY check it out because I love a good long form vid to listen to while I work :))) Thank you thank you!! I think I am also guilty of probably over looking this aspect too so I could definitely use a vid like this. Thank you again :) <3

[badsalmonella]

Man I am SO talkative today I even wanna get into my feelings about ALL THIS but idk if I should idk idk TOO MANY WORDS. UNLESS Y'ALL WANNA GET INTO IT. I CAN GET INTO IT!!! 👀👀👀👀👀

@cherrybearryy