The other new costume that I made for Costume College this summer was my gala dress, which was an 1885 fancy dress costume (like a for masquerade ball) representing the telegraph. This is one of the most bizarre costumes that I've ever made, but also one of the most fun. I wish I could take credit for the zany design of this dress, but other than a few minor modifications, I just tried to copy the fashion plate as closely as possible.
This is only the 3rd bustle dress that I've ever made, and I while I think I did pretty good with the foundation skirt and the bodice, the overskirt was less to my liking. I tried to just drape something on my own at the very last minute, but looking at pictures now, I'm disappointed with how flat it looks in back. If I ever have an excuse to wear it again, I'm definitely going to take the overskirt apart and try a different bustling technique. Luckily, all that black fabric hides a lot of flaws, so I don't think it was too obvious to anybody other than me that the overskirt didn't live up to my expectations.
For the accessories, I made a faux-leather pouch that I sprayed with a little gold spray paint to give it a bit of a shimmer. The pouch closes with an antique telegraph messenger button that also has zig-zag arrows on it, which I'm sure nobody would ever notice in real life, but details like that always make me happy. I also made some morse code tape to wear around my waist out of brown paper tape that was folded in half and glued. Then I painted it white and punched a message into the paper tape with a hole puncher. Of course I had to entertain myself while doing all of that punching, so one of the things that it says is "tonight we're gonna party like it's 1885". ;) And finally, I found some online examples of real telegraph envelopes from the Victorian period, and I made my own reproductions to carry around in my messenger pouch to use as a prop.
I only thing that I didn't like in the original illustration was the kooky headdress made out of one of those glass telegraph pole insulators. I love silly hats, but that was even too weird for me to get into! So I decided to make a telegraph tiara using model train telephone poles and a very simple bridal tiara. I sawed the poles to the right lengths, super-glued them to the tiara, strung the poles with gold wire, and then spray painted the whole thing with gold paint.
So that's about it! I am totally hooked on Victorian masquerade costumes now, and I hope I get a chance to make another one in the future. The most fun part of this whole project was getting to wear my costume with other fancy dress people at the Costume College Time Traveler's Gala. I love dressing in themed groups, and we had quite a ball at the ball!
this is so wonderful and funny, wow wow wow!
ReplyDeleteI love this project -- it turned out great, and I love how you kept it so close to the original, but made some cool changes (I especially love the tiara). Great job! And HA!!!! about the message in morse code. That's great! :D
ReplyDeleteThe accessories are lovely! Beautiful work!
ReplyDeleteSuch a fun project! The accessories really make the outfit. The detail and creativity of them is so cool!
ReplyDeleteWow, so cool! I love the zigzag arrows
ReplyDeleteOk, wait, you put real Morse code messages in the waist tape? That is super awesome!
ReplyDeleteThis whole project is so creative and cute - I love how it turned out!
I want a fancy dress costume now!
Oh, cool! I love the idea of reproducing costumes.
ReplyDeleteits look fantastic++++wow++++beautiful
ReplyDeleteI love your shoes! Where can you get shoes like that? I googled till I ran out of ideas for word combinations, but all I could find were reproduction lace-up shoes.
ReplyDeleteHi Aija - I'm sorry I forgot to mention the shoes! They are Bordello Whimsey boots. Unfortunately, the have a zipper, but they were still great Victorian shoes for a reasonable price!
ReplyDeleteYou looked so fabulous, I just loved how it turned out!
ReplyDeleteOh, I LOVE this. You really recreated the fashion plate, and it's so unique.
ReplyDeleteLove it!
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