Spring 2004
Somehow I got the idea to be Marilyn Monroe for Halloween at our 12th anniversary Famous Dead Person's Ball. Many costumer friends are very into Moulin Rouge, which is all well and good, but it got me thinking about the original "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" number. Why not go retro and make that fabulous dress, turning my brunette self into a blonde bombshell for a night?

So, in late April 2004, I ordered Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on DVD so I could obsess about the idea. After BayCon-related costuming madness, I threw myself into researching that glorious pink satin gown and started hunting down appropriate accessories...

June 7, 2004, 10:03am
a kiss on the hand may be quite continental...
But eBay is a girl's best friend! Current searches are "bullet bra strapless" and "rhinestone pin round." Next up, "pink gloves." Aside from the dress and wig, methinks this whole costume will be built by eBay.

June 6, 2004
talk to me Harry Winston, tell me all about it
And I *do* mean rhinestones! Been surfing on eBay for Marilyn "diamonds." First, I had to obsessively make notes about that scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (GPB). From how many rows of gems are on her necklace (which looks like two separate necklaces, or at least, that's the route I'll have to go) to the way the bow sits on her luscious backside (never realized the dress was lined in black).

I blame you recreation costumers, you. I could have just made a pink strapless dress, slapped on a blonde wig, and worn the old rhinestone necklace and earrings I've had since Madonna's "Like a Virgin" days

But noooooooo! I've been infected with the evil that is reproducing an existing costume exactly. Blast you all! Now I want the precise cut of the gown (how am I going to get pointy '50s boobs?), the same number of "diamond" bracelets (four), and the same shade of eyebrows (light brown).

June 7, 2004, 10:14pm
and we all lose our charms in the end
Well poo. DVD screen capturing is not as simple as I thought it would be. The nifty little DVD Capture application won't work on my iBook. It *seemed* like it was working, and I painstakingly made a dozen or so screencaps, but noooooooo! It couldn't save as .jpg (was looking for "Image Events.app" which according to the Apple Knowledge Base has something to do with scripting). But it said it could save as PDF, but then the PDFs had big black boxes where the movie images should have been. Phooey!

Hmm... gotta search the Web for a different Mac DVD screen-cap program, if one exists. Oh and you can't make a screenshot of a DVD apparently. I guess they're locked or something.

C'mon, I'm not trying to pirate anything! (It's not like a screen cap would be worth pirating anyways.) I'm just a geeky costumer who wants to obsessively document every angle of a gown. Is that so wrooooong?

June 9, 2004, 9:27am
there may come a time when a hard-boiled employer thinks you're awful nice...
Got myself a bullet bra, which I hope fits. Or at least fits well enough that I can modify it and stuff it. Oh yes, there will be stuffing! I'll have to try the reputed drag-queen trick of using bags full of birdseed (since I have birdseed at home already). If that's too heavy, it's plain ol' batting or nylons. Maybe Frederick's has some fancy pads that are slightly more realistic, yet not super expensive. Now is the time I mourn losing my formerly Marilyn-esque bustline. *sigh* Anyway, once I have and fit the bra, I can start making a muslin of the dress itself, plus start the search for hot pink satin (which I'm hoping won't be too hard to find).

Still bidding on vast quantities of rhinestones. In a day or two, I'll either have that ice or no dice.

I'm starting to think that I might actually wear my Halloween costume to work this year. In previous years, the turnout has been pretty big. Lots and lots of people bring their kids, and a goodly number of adults show up in costume too. There's a big contest (I hear all us real costumers saying right now: "Amateur Season!").

Marilyn Monroe is just so very not me, and that could make it more fun to do at work. Imagine the double-takes and people not knowing who I really am. Of course, sitting in a computer chair all day in pink satin and a wig would crumple and muss the outfit too much on the day before it's real premiere. Maybe I could wear it in the morning, then change after the costume contest at noon.

Eh, something to think about. It's a lot of trouble just to show off to new people.

Speaking of trouble, I tried another Mac DVD capture program with no luck last night. The preview of the screen cap looked ok, but when I closed it and later opened it in PhotoShop, it was just a black square. Wtf? This isn't supposed to be that hard. I'm beginning to wonder if it's the DVD itself.

June 9, 2004, 10:05am
A little more surfing revealed why I'm having so much trouble making screen caps of GPB -- it's all Apple's fault! I bet it has to do with iTunes. To suck up to big media companies and get their cooperation, Apple has made it harder to copy DVDs on OSX.

This SF Gate article lays it out:
...none of Apple's screen-copying routines (including Mac OS X's Grab utility) will capture anything from a DVD. According to Apple spokeswoman Alicia Awbrey, that's because "we designed the DVD player so one cannot grab the frame from the screen. This is part of our ongoing commitment to being a responsible player in the digital content era and protect intellectual property rights."

The same article suggests Snapz Pro and DVD Capture (the two applications I've tried) to get around "Apple's efforts to placate Hollywood." But these programs only work on Macs with Nvidia graphics cards. I bet my iBook has an ATI one, blast it all.

However, there may be a solution. Don't use Apple's built-in DVD Player, and use VideoLAN Client instead. Then I should be able to make screencaps with either Snaps or the Mac OS Grab tool. We'll see.

June 11, 2004
Finally got screencaps to work, thanks to VLC and Snapz. Not the highest quality though. And, unlike Apple's built-in DVD software, VLC doesn't let you pause and go forward/back screen by screen. So getting the shots I wanted was too freakin' hard. Oh well. I did get enough for a start.

Pictures are all on the research page.

I now have both of the commercially available patterns for this gown -- Simplicity #8393 off eBay and McCall's #3385 through Patterns From the Past. I'll probably combine the two. The Simplicity bow looks a lot more accurate, but the McCall's bust seems pointier. Neither have the wrapped back slit, so I need to look through other patterns for that or try to wing it myself (bleh).

Received my hot-pink satin opera gloves in the mail via eBay. Will try to match the dress fabric to these. I'm also bidding on a metric fuckton more rhinestones.

June 15, 2004
square cut or pear shape these rocks don't lose their shape
After two weeks of heavy eBaying, I've now bought all my diamonds -- er, I mean rhinestones. I've only received the first one so far, the wide, flat choker. Going to affix a round brooch to it to simulate her upper necklace. Won a dangly necklace today. Won some earrings over the weekend (not as long as they should be, but the right general shape). And I've bought all four wide bracelets, two clasp style, two expansion style, for balance. Could try to find a smaller round brooch to put on one bracelet, mimicking the upper necklace.

Bullet bra is on the way. Bought almost all the dress materials on Sunday. Loads of hot pink and black satin, plastic boning, belting, interfacing. Sadly no hot pink invisible zipper, nor a small rectangular belt buckle I can cover with fabric. Have to look at Hancock's for those. Also want to find an evening dress pattern with an overlapped/wrapped back slit. Because I suck and need to use patterns. So sue me. I can combine patterns, just not draft 'em from scratch. Got lots of muslin though so I can fiddle with the bodice once the bra arrives.

So now the easy parts are over, and the hard part (i.e., the sewing) begins.

August 28, 2005
We ended up not having a Halloween party in 2004, so I shelved all my Marilyn goodies for an unknown date in the future -- which luckily enough, turned out to be the next year! And in another flash of brilliance and luck, I hired a dear friend to sew the thing for me. I mocked up the bodice over the fake boobies of doom and shipped all the materials off to be whipped into a pink satin frenzy. I also bought the wig and a few more rhinestones, plus I got some great makeup tips, photocopied from a Marilyn book by a friend.

October 20, 2005
Birdseed makes for heavy boobies. Too heavy, in fact, for a strapless dress. Also, the 1950s pointy-boob bra is a smidge higher all around than the Marilyn dress. Nothing that copious safety pins and perhaps a bit of toupee tape won't fix. The fake boobs got replaced with quilt batting, much lighter, still pointy as hell. The wig is styled and looks surprisingly good with the wig cap and all.

But man, is this costume fucked up. I mean, it's so entirely NOT me. The hot pink is ok, it's one of my favourite colors. But the style of the dress is something I didn't realize that I'd never wear otherwise. I don't really do strapless, or if so, it's a corset and full skirt kinda strapless. I feel very exposed in this one. And the platinum blonde, omg, it is NOT me. The wig looked good, and Thomas even said it looked like real hair. But it freaks me out to look at myself in a mirror with it on. Thank the gods I won't be looking at myself and that I also won't have my glasses on all night (although the blonde wig and black cat-eye glasses was a more *me* look, actually).

I think this is Costuming Out of Spite. I thot it'd be funny, and, well, I guess it will be. But I'm also gonna be uncomfortable all night and not just physically. I felt like I was in drag, and not especially good drag either. Yeah, the birdseed would have been more natural, but there ain't nothing natural looking about this get-up.

Also, satin gloves + rhinestones = snag city! I suspect I won't wear the gloves very long. PITA. Sure, we gotta suffer for fashion, but this is ridiculous, especially as hostess.

Sometimes, the costume idea in my head doesn't pan out. Instead of springing fully formed from my skull like Athena, it kinda squishes out my ears. This is the latter. No fault of the talented seamstress, no way, hon. You did a fine job. Especially the bow, it is *to die for* and the invisible snap on the side gives it the perfect angle. But it's just the whole package and how it looks on me. Freakin' weird, and not in my accustomed 'freak' or 'weird' self.

It'll be fine for the party, especially once I get all the makeup on. I'll have a good time. People will get a big laugh outta me. I'm always good to laugh at. But I seriously doubt I'll wear it again. Such is the state of Halloween costumes for me anyway. It's the one costume chance where I do something different, something one-off, something off my own beaten path. This one definitely qualifies for all that.

November 1, 2005
Shocking! I somehow made a pretty good blonde! All my worries about this costume came to naught. I looked awesome and had a killer time at my own party. A key part of this was switching the underpinnings. The authentic 1950s bra just didn't work on me or with this gown. But a basic strapless longline bra from Frederick's of Hollywood did the trick (especially stuffed with quilt-batting boobies). Held up much more firmly, just needed a few safety pins on the sides where it was a smidge higher than the gown's bodice. Also, wearing the belt and bow helped stabilize the bodice and keep everything in place.

Omg, the bow! Baby got back, big time! I loved it. People were touching my butt, I mean, my bow all night. Everyone marveled at the architectural-ness of it all. The hugeness. The perkiness. That's a mighty fine assbow!

Even the gloves and rhinestones didn't annoy me till late in the evening, and I managed to accomplish my hostess duties with them on for hours. Those sparklers have always been my favourite part of this costume. After all, rhinestones are a girl's best friend (next to eBay ;-).

Famous Dead Person's Ball photos from:

• Me and Thomas
• Dany
• Sarah
• Kendra