Re: Nelly Don - Raj-Pop

N

noir_boudoir

Registered Guest
Here's the dress I was referring to in the Nelly Don thread.

What I really like about it, is the fact that it looks nothing like most other Nelly Dons I've seen advertised (although they're usually very nice too).

I also like the fact that unlike the later 60s/early 70s 'Persian Miniature' (more photo-)print shift dresses, this is made from crisp cotton, not polyester.

The combination of the label 'Don-About' and the unusual mixture of novelty features must mean that it was a youth line.

I took the hem down after I received it, and somehow the original scallops suit the border print so much better than the shortened straight-blunt-shift edge did.

The print is a psychadelic-ized, pop-simplified version of Mughal or Persian carpet hunts, plus a floral decoration that you find on some Mughal ceramics or carpets.

<img src="http://worldservice.noirboudoir.com/printbazaar/donaboutgallery.jpg" height=550>

The saffron buttons do up at the left shoulder and half-way down the left hand side, in a kind of apron effect.

What does everyone think about a date (apart from just '60s')? How long would it have taken for a firm like Nelly Don to have decided to pick up on pop-y trends for a youth line?

I find it a really inventive translation, whenever they made it.

The only alterations left on the dress are slight straightening of the outline around the waist and hips, since the side-seams were let out just under an inch in total... slightly unevenly so that a teensy bit more of the waist was let out.

Welcome all opinions - I find this a totally hypnotic dress! (and, of course, it's staying in the 'keep' pile for now)

Lin
 
I like the original hemline!

And it almost with the scalloped edge calls to equally be a stand alone dress and equally something over wide legged pants and exotic/middle eastern inspired slippers...all done in the same bold colorway. Maybe its late and my brain is mush...
 
You're so right, actually Chris.

Even though a kameez could just have straight corners and narrow slits up the side, somehow the noticable structure of the front panel makes you <i>think</i> of a kameez.

I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but this'll make me try this over jeans - means I can probably wear it more often that way.

Just FYI, here are the pics of 'before' that the seller, Angela, has lent me:

<img src="http://worldservice.noirboudoir.com/printbazaar/100_4718.jpg">

<img src="http://worldservice.noirboudoir.com/printbazaar/100_4717.jpg" height=300>

They're great pictures, but somehow in my eyes, looking back, it makes the print less attractive. I can't think why.

I'd love to hear people's opinions of the style, though; I'm just convinced there's something I'm not getting about it... I'm just not familiar enough with the 60s context.

I think I saw another 60s shift dress recently, with this half-button fastening...
The print somehow reminds me of 60s Disney work - like the original 101 Dalmations.

L
 
Here's another collage I did for my Orientalist Wardrobe gallery, showing the graphic quality of the print and the shape of the dress:
<p align="center">.
<a href="http://worldservice.noirboudoir.com/rajpop.html"><img src="http://worldservice.noirboudoir.com/donaboutflat.jpg" height=600></a>

I can't get the colour to show as well as it does in the original pics - rotten light here at the moment...

L
 
what about scanning in a little bit of the fabric as a "swatch" to show the true color? But if its the "flavor" you are going for...it is definitely in the picture.

I think what you could be picking up on is that abrupt horizontal hemline that is much friendlier to stripes, solids and bold patterns, where this pattern is a lot more fluid, even if there is a border print at the end. It just seems to "cut acrossed and end". If the attention was brought up to the bust area and the print was up there instead, it may not be as much the case.

Lin, I would actually venture to guess (and i could be rediculously wrong) that your dress is pushing into the later 60s versus the early. Cotton prints did happen at that time as well. Polyester and other synthetics did gain popularity because of their newness, colorfastness, etc....but cottons still happened especially with summery clothing...cotton print dresses, denim shorts, etc etc... photoprints happen on polyester because designers found that it was more colorfast and you could use more precision and detail on it. And it could be more of a result of the neoclassicism that was starting at the time.

The big thing for me is that the princess seaming in this type of dress was really more prevelant in the later 60s and going quite into the 70s than earlier on. In earlier shift dresses, bust darting vs princess seaming was a bit more common. Even if it wasn't a huge amount. You had the sheath in the 50s, and of course, the silhouette didn't die out especially in evening wear, but the shift dresses, even though looser in the caboose than a sheath, still retained a bit of bust darting. Then the seams mporphed to princess big time. Now I have had a suit that had princess seams that was from the 60s..but it was more like 67ish going into 68, when "american mod" was in swing. I have a shift dress that i always describe as midway between a shift and a sheath, when actually it is a shift, but i just am so much more used to seeing the later ones with the princess seams from the cusp or slightly later.

Now, of course i am not saying that princess seaming did not occur at all before the later 60s. I am just saying that in this style of dress, it is much more LIKELY to be a cusper or at least a last half 60s. But that is only one feeble minded observance

Chris
 
<i>but it was more like 67ish going into 68, when "american mod" was in swing.</i>

I think this is what I was stumbling towards, Chris - I was wondering whether this was a US response to a variety of pop trends. And if Nelly Don was generally a rather conservative label, their trendy youth line, while interesting and charming, might have been a bit slow on the uptake?

I do find the border print interesting, though, in the way that it differs from those polyester photo print types. It's a quite different approach to using the source material - rather than picking a frame and more-or-less reproducing it, they've sampled, simplified and adapted it to a dress fabric that would have worked in a full skirt as well as a shift.

Hmmm, interesting!
L
 
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