Dressed: The History of Fashion · Dressed Media

'Tis the Season V: Fashion History Gift Hits (and Misses)

December 19, 2025·48 min·4 clips

April gifts Audrey Hepburn's earrings from Sabrina, sparking a costume design scandal between Edith Head and Givenchy.

Holiday cheer opens the room. After the show's setup, Cassidy Zachary and April Callahan settle into what they call arguably their favorite recording of the season. There is a little sting to it too, since this is the last episode of the season and the fifth round of their fashion-history gift ritual. The mood stays loose and playful. They trade objects chosen for each other's tastes, then move from first guesses into the exact material details Dressed does so well. One gift has to do with hair. The excerpt catches a comparison to curly wavy hair, with the wording sliding between a switch and the wave. Then the accessories get sharper. A later gift circles around smoking, though the recipient does not smoke and is read instead through her love of candles. A lighter seems possible. So does a matchbox. The real object is stranger and better: rust suede Schiaparelli smoking gloves from the June 15, 1939 issue of Vogue magazine. The wrist has small individual places for matches, plus a striking board, so the glove becomes the accessory and the tool. The reaction lands fast. The gloves are called amazing, and the speaker says she is stealing them for her SCAP class. Credit goes to Vicky Pass and the Visual Sustenance Instagram account for posting the gloves years earlier. The episode closes by sending listeners to the show's bookshop.org bookshelf, with over 150 favorite fashion-history titles.

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