Retro Rack

Thank you so much for joining me on my belt retrospective, Fashionable Reader! We have talked about decorative belts, matched belts, sash belts, and the Swiss Waist. I've touched on a few others as well.

1908 Jacket  Jeanne Paquin, 1908  The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

1966 Yves Saint Laurent, 1966  Kerry Taylor Auctions

2014 Alberta-Ferretti

1906-1908  Museo del Traje

Now I'm going to take this last post to blog a bit about my own relationship with belts.

As a girl with a 10 inch or more waist to hip to Rack ratio the belt is often not an option, otherwise I would have no waist at all! On the other hand it can cinch in such a way as to make the top and bottom bulge out in a most egregious manner. Here is a bit of a retrospective on my own relationship with the belt. You can plainly seem my bent is in favor of skinny belts, as a rule.


Cream belt with green dress, same belt with red dress, red dress with different white slim belt. Note how the same belt looks different with different cut and color of dress? And how the same dress with a different thickness of belt has a slightly different silhouette?


 Decorative belt that is also matched to my long maxi dress.


 Tan belt with pencil dresses: patterned and plain.


White belt in a layered look with a tailored turquoise shirt; same belt with a navy dot dress (that has a matched belt); the same navy dress with red belt.


 Three matched belts: the silver, the red dot, and the bow flowered.


Black bow stretch belts worn with two more blowsy dresses. Notice, slightly frumpy in the Rack area?


Same black bow belt with two different blush pink dresses. On a day dress with a fitted top the other a more 1920s dress that I used the belt to cinch in.


Two examples of a belt with a skirt top combo. (Note how good Kate looks in that wide belt? She's taller and slimmer than me. Sigh.) That same black belt again, and the ubiquitous white. I do have other belts but I didn't realize how often I wear these two and the cream. Particularly for travel I usually have white (rainy snowy = my only non-leather water resistant pumps are white); cream (my most useful bag is cream and some of my more comfortable shoes); black (because hey, it almost always goes with everything) and red (again the bag is good and pumps are comfy). I am so neglecting brown and tan, leopard, and gold. And I have such good belts for those! I also have other cream ones (wider) white ones (a bow) and leopard ones (waist cinch) but I just don't wear them as much.

Ah, belts, such a complicated relationship.


Retro Rack is also on facebook where I post additional images and fashion thoughts.