1893 aesthetic dress

03.10.2020 edit: fixed a problem of mesh getting spiky when watching a sim walk from a distance. Please redownload!

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Hello everyone!

Today I bring you something I've been planning on making for ages: an artistic / aesthetic / reform(ish) dress for your sims. It's not a full blown reform gown - those became the thing only a couple of years later - but it definitely is influenced by the whole dress reform movement. In case you've never heard of it - beware! Here comes a tiny 'history corner' section:

It all started with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a bunch of artists who found the Victorian fashion - especially female - too stiff and unnatural. They were rather fans of long, flowy, loose medieval and renaissance gowns (as you can easily guess from any of their paintings). And that's what they were trying to promote; to reform the way women dressed. They weren't extremely successful at it, as you can see looking at the majority of Victorian fashion plates, but with time the whole idea was getting more and more recognition. There were designers - and brave fashionistas - who liked the whole concept and enjoyed creating (or wearing) what they called 'artistic' or 'aesthetic' dresses. In early 1900s those dresses - now known mostly as 'reform gowns' - kind of made it to mainstream and even though they never replaced the 'proper' fashion, they were at times advertised alongside 'normal' dresses. Judging by how fashion developed in later 1900s and 1910s, I'd say the whole movement did make a difference in fashion history.

As cool as artistic dresses were, you have to remember that they could be worn only by the chosen few. Firstly, you had to be rather rich, as back then - just like now - art wasn't cheap. Secondly, you needed a proper social standing (and probably also the right character for this). Aesthetic dresses were VERY different from the mainstream fashion; especially in 1890s, the decade infamous for tight lacing, wearing something so loose that you could basically not wear a corset underneath at all (not explicitly encouraged, but everyone knew the option was there) made you look like a... Well, either a trendsetter or a weirdo, depending on how influential you were. And thirdly, you also needed a certain figure - tall and slender - to pull off this look, otherwise you could easily end up looking as if you were dressed in a sack. Imagine if that was what We wear bags meant! The whole neighbourhood running around in reform gowns XD

Sooooo, after this long introduction, here it comes! In 20 swatches:

• polycount: ca. 7K
• Base Game compatible
• HQ mod compatible (...)
• all LODs
• custom thumbnail, bump and specular maps, some very gentle shine
• tagged as everyday, party and warm weather (idk, looks like it could work for summer?)
• found under long dresses subcategory
• colour tagged
• disallowed for random, as only chosen few blah blah blah
• PDN and PSD for recolours included - you don’t need it for the mesh to work

I haven't spotted any problems, but let me know if you notice any.

Hope you'll like it, enjoy!

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Terms of Use

Don’t: claim it’s yours or monetise in any way

Do: convert, recolour, include the mesh, edit the mesh to create something amazing - just please tag me once you publish it, so that I could also see it!