OTMAA's Formal Photos

[Margarita Markovna]

The measles was causing their hair to come out little by little, so they shaved it. I guess to get rid of the hassle of having loose hair everywhere.  :-/

Wow! I've never seen that pic before, Sarushka.  

Not the hassle of having hair everywhere, but because when you shave it off it grows back faster than it would when it falls out.

[grandduchess_42]

Not the hassle of having hair everywhere, but because when you shave it off it grows back faster than it would when it falls out.

ah i would hate to have my hair shaven off!

really i didn't know that!

[divine_grace]

Does anyone know why Olga, Maria and Alexei didn't have any  formal close up portrait like Tatiana's and Anastasia's during 1915 or 1916? And if there is how come it hasn't surfaced yet like at least on ebay or new Romanov books?

[grandduchess_42]

Does anyone know why Olga, Maria and Alexei didn't have any  formal close up portrait like Tatiana's and Anastasia's during 1915 or 1916? And if there is how come it hasn't surfaced yet like at least on ebay or new Romanov books?

what pictures are these?

is it the ones where they are up against the fence?

[divine_grace]

No grandduchess_42, what I mean is this, you know the portrait session where the grand duchesess were sitting on a couch in which Maria had her hair up? Its ether 1915 or 1916. I'm not sure of the particular year. I've only seen Anastasia's and Tatiana's.

[Sarushka]

Does anyone know why Olga, Maria and Alexei didn't have any  formal close up portrait like Tatiana's and Anastasia's during 1915 or 1916? And if there is how come it hasn't surfaced yet like at least on ebay or new Romanov books?

I've never seen a 1915/6 solo portrait for Olga, Maria or Aleksei, either. Here's Anastasia's, for those who haven't seen it already:

Anyone have it larger or better quality? Incidentally, I've never seen a really top-notch reproduction of ANY of the 1915/6 formals, except for that one of the girls on the couch. Strange, isn't it?

[Margarita Markovna]

I've got this one of Tatiana which is pretty good, not as good as formals from other years though.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/margaritamarkovna/Romanov%20Photos/tatianaformal.jpg

[dianoshka]

I've never seen this one. Marie seems so different than the rest of the family. They all look anguished while she looks at ease and relaxed.

[Zanthia]

I don't know what in the world Olga, Tatiana and Marie was thinking, having their hair like that!!!  They look like 40 years old oldmaids! It completely ruin their looks. I know that hairdo was ahead of their time, it was the fashion of the mid-20's and 30's, but it looks terrible on girls who are so young as they are. It could possibly go for Olga, without doing her beauty too much unjustice, but not for Tatiana and Marie.

[Grace]

Well, that's just fashion.

I wonder what they'd think of today's looks -- stringy hair, backsides hanging out of jeans, bra straps showing under tops, pierced noses and eyebrows...

[Holly]

HAHA! Better yet, what would ALIX think of todays looks?  

I would really love Anastasia's 1915 formal picture larger and in better quality.   does anyone have it?
                                 - Holechka

[Justine]

I am sure that I saw this photo of Anastasia in 1915 larger and in better quality, but it was long time ago and I can't remember in what site it was :-/

[Romanov_fan]

Fashions do change; Otma's hair styles, like some other hair styles then, might not have always been flattering. I myself think Marie did not look nice with hair that was up, nor did Tatiana look very nice with long hair. But they were such beauties, the hairstyles don't make them look that bad in my view. Perhaps the hair styles for the formal photos were a bit overly formal.

[matushka]

First of all, Sarushka, many thanks for this very rare and wonderful formal picture of the four GD! Second, I would like to suggest a datation for these shots. In a letter of august 1916 (I must shake the correspondance, to say exactly which day), Alexandra Feodorovna wrote her husband that the four girls went this day afternoon to a photo section and had to prepare for this. As we do not know any other formal shots for the war's period, I think that our pictures (the Anastasia's one, the 2 Tatiana's the couch's one and your, Sarushka) are from august 1916. Or has anyone else other suggestion? I hope we will cross the Maria's and Olga's picture one day...

[matushka]

So, I looked at the correspondance and found the exact date and quotation: 11 august 1916. "Almost the whole day the girlies had a photo session by Funk because they need new shots to give them in comittes and so on"
Do you think this suggestion of datation is right? Hope someone will give here the english version of the quotation.