Autumn in Rotterdam

 On the staircase of Huis Sonneveld (photo by Myrtle Beauregard)

 

Last Saturday I visited Rotterdam with my friends from Club Interbellum. Marinka, who organised the trip, invited us to her cosy home for coffee and cake first. Then we set out for a lovely autumn walk. We crossed the river Maas underground via the Maastunnel, that featured some old escalators.

 

 

Photo's above by Frank de Koning

We had lunch at a resteaurant that served excellent meatballs and continued our walk.

 

Eventhough Rotterdam was bombed during WWII and the city centre is almost entirely modern, there are some beautiful buildings left.

The pictures below were taken ond the shores of a pond in a little park. My friend Myrtle already had my blog in mind whilst taking pictures of me :)

 

Photo's above by Myrtle Beauregard

Photo by Frank de Koning

 

I was wearing an autumnal color combo: copperbrown blouse and dark green skirt.
The blouse is actually a dress and I've worn it a such.

The fabric is cut on the bias so it is very flowy. Love the art deco influence in the pattern. The darker pieces are actually the back of the same fabric!

 

Then we visited the 'temporary fashion museum' which is a bit too conceptual for my taste but we did have a lot of fun trying on extremely high heels. Some historical garments were for sale, so you could touch them and even try them on. Unfortunately prices were to high for us as we are so used to snap up bargains ;).

Poor Myrtle fell in love with this terribly expensive dress.

Afterwards we went to Huis Sonneveld. As it was built in 1932-33 in a modernistic/minimalistic style, the family that came to live there had to leave almost everything behind in their old home in order not to disturb the design with clutter.

This was the study room of the two daughters of the house. As it was allowed tot touch most things and sit on things here I'm with Martine and Myrtle on the couch in the girls' room.

 

Some pictures of the girls who lived in the house.

Mirrors make for great selfie moments ;)

 

I was wearing a tweed coat from the early to mid 1930's. It hase some amazing details like the stitching in the collar and the wooden buttons. It was hardly worn, the was even a spare button sewn into the hem. A good thing as buttons like these are almost impossible to replace.

 

 

When I got the coat I got the hat for free, because they both have Scandinvian labels, were found together and might have belonged together.

 

With hats like these it is always difficult to give a date because these styles were populare in the 30's but also in the early 50's.

 

 

 

 

Adjoined to the master bedroom is a dressing room with lots of space for clothes! The mirrors give an alround view of my outfit.

 

 

Such an amazingly birght color for the master bathroom, with bath AND shower an a seperate toilet behind a door. Eventhough this house may look minimalistic it had many luxurious, and for the time modern, comforts.

Myrtle's dress matched the bathroom :)

 

A guest bedroom that looks a bit too much like a hospital for my taste.

 

We had some drinks and bitterballen to end the day. But I'll not end this post without a little P.S.:

 

 

On tis picture I'm holding a bathing suit. Though the pond looked perfect for a stylish dive it was way tot cold to go swimming. Hennie had found a lot of bathingsuits at a flea market a while ago and sold several of them. I was so happy to get two blue woolen numbers! Tnak you Hennie for letting go of them!

The one I'm holding is hard to date could be anything from the late 30's to early 50's I guess. Love the color and the little embroidery on the hip.

 

 

 

The label reads Tribosa, fabricated in The Netherlands. Tribosa was a factory producing knitwear located in Den Bosch. The fact that 'Nederlands' is spelled with an -s instead of -sch may mean it is from after the war when the spelling was officially changed. Other brands did use this spelling already in the 30's, so can't be sure.

 

The second bathing suit is most probably from the second half of the 30's. Love the nautical style.

 

 

Swimming in wool can be tricky, so I tried these out in the bathtub the next day. They worked, did not sag that is!

 

Almost sad it is autumn instead of summer as I'm so looking forward to wearing them!

 

 

Reasons for dressing up lately

Just a quick post with some looks of the last few weeks. Eventhough I've been indoors a lot lately because of the 'wounded' leg there were still plenty of reasons for dressing up (and going out against doctors advice ;)). So this is what I've been up to and what I wore.

 

 

Tuesday after the tweedride a friend and I had tickets for 'Der Rosenkavalier'. Not a thing to cancel though it was not the smartest thing to do. In Holland people tend to go to the opera or theatre in jeans... but I think it is a legitimate reason to dress up. My hair turned out rather perfectly that day. I wore a mid 1930's dress with lace 'wings'.

A picture of the back taken last year or so.

One week later I was an extra for an educational movie about the second world war. I wore several outfits. This is the most elegant one for '1939'. It was the first time I wore this crazy hat. Found it on 'Marktplaats' (the Dutch E-bay). It was very badly photographed and cheap, those are often the best finds.

The day after I had a few ladies over for an afternoon high tea. I could finally use my fine china. In accordance with the teacups I wore an eastern inspired look: 1930's lounging pajamas in a 'chinese' style. The reason for wearing pajamas was that it was a stylish way to cover up my leg without stockings (had to wear them the day before but not exactly good for the healing process). I've had a fantasy of receiving guests in pj's as well so I was not too sad to not be able to wear a nice dress. I received in my easy chair with my leg on my elephant sidetable ;)

 

 

The food was sumptuous thanks to Elisabeth who did not only look like a ture lady visiting with gloves hat and original stockings but she did also bring loads of cake and other sweets from Holtkamp (one of the best patisseries in Amsterdam).


The weekend I spend at my parents



Museum openings require nice outfits. I somehow go for black to these events most of the time:

 

This was actually a few weeks ago to the opening of 'Ode aan de Nederlandse Mode' (ode to Dutch fashion) at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. My leg was still fine but I had a cold and felt like.... I'm wearing a late '30/40's dress made of very unusual fabric a print of 'splashes of paint' in gold. Almost looks 80's but it certainly isn't. Combined with a green necklace.

 

Last Friday a week ago at the Rijksmuseum, opening of Asia & Amsterdam. I wore a black crepe dress with an amazing collar.

 

 

Because stockings still wouldn't work I paired it with wide legged trousers. Worked well against all expectations. The weather was very damp and rainy so I decided to put my hair up as no artificial curl would have lasted.

 

 

The dress also features a lovely buckle. So great the belt is still with the dress, so often not the case.

 

 

 Last weekend I visited my friend Martine in Oegstgeest. It was to be laid back evening with drinks and food at her home. But no reason not to make an effort to look nice. I wore a dress that was gifted to me by my friend Myrtle. She'd bought it (together with me) to alter but in het end it would not work for her. Because I had tried on the same dress and she knew it also suited me she donated it to me!! Thumbs up for having friends to trade clothes with :)

 

Such a pretty shade of plum! The dress has a peplum that makes it look almost like a little suit.

 

 

Though it looked so nice just as it was I paired it with a wool cardigan because of the cold. Sometimes practicality comes before a perfect look, but only SOMEtimes!




By now the leg is more or less mended, still have to be careful though. Had a great weekend with bestockinged legs! Post will follow soon!!