My favorite outfit of Carnevale 2022 turned out to be this dark confection made mostly of purchased items with loads of alterations and embellishments. And that rather sums up my ideal approach to costuming! Actual sewing irritates me, but taking various things and hacking them into my vision and loading them with trim is what
I bought this 1920s dress from LaVieDelight on Etsy several years ago, and I’m so pleased because it’s an actually flattering and also appropriate period shape. Many ’20s styles don’t work well on curvy bodies, but somehow this does. Plus, being a ‘little black dress,’ it’s perfect for accessorizing for different events. Which I’ve done!
Many of us have seen this delightful painting with an 18th-c. gent wearing leopard-print breeches and waistcoat. It’s the generically named “An Interior with Elegant Company” by Venceslao Verlin (d. 1780). While I can’t find much about this specific painting, there are other images from around 18th-c. Europe of men and a few women wearing
For several years, I’d planned to recreate a costume like those worn in the Chinese TV drama The Empresses in the Palace (2015), aka The Legend of Zhen Huan (2011). I reviewed the shortened Netflix version of the series for Frock Flicks and was in love with the costumes, of course. Based a smidge of
The final gown I wore to the Portland Vampire Masquerade Ball turned out pretty close to my vision. My mom helped out by doing a lot of the appliqué of the motifs on the forepart (though once I saw how the bat-shaped sequins looked, I had to sew them all over the stomacher myself). Accessories
My motto for this website and all my dress-up endeavors has long been, “We’re born naked, everything else is a costume,” which is a paraphrase of RuPaul’s “We’re born naked, everything else is drag.” Because Mama Ru and I have the same philosophy that all the clothes / makeup / hairstyle / etc. we garb
Also know as my goth courtesan gown. I’ve wanted something like this ever since I joined Bella Donna Historical Performers, but it took a while for the right fabric to come along. And even then, I didn’t have the time to make it myself — so I commissioned Sarah to do it. But I did
Did you know Kendra wrote a book? My BFF Kendra wrote an awesome book about how to style 18th-century hair & wigs, chock full of historical research & documentation. It was ready for sale at Costume College 2014, so I wanted to help promote it. I decided to wear the wig I modeled for her
Making lemonade out of lemons — since my hair fell out from chemo, this seems like a good time to go for one of those freaky-cool shaved-forehead styles that has popped up in various points of history. Go big or go home! At first, I though of Burgundian 1470s. It’s a period I don’t know
For the Costume College Gala in 2013, I had a hard time coming up with something to wear. Originally, I wanted to make the 18th-c. masquerade gown I’ve been lusting after for years. I have the main fabrics, I know how to design & create it, I have scads of research about it. Heck, I
While I have a few wee SCA projects to work on at the start of this year, my main sewing goals between January and May are going to be all 18th century, all the time. Why? Because we’re going to France, baby! We are renting a chateau in the south of France with the same
A bio-queen a la “RuPaul’s Drag U,” even tho’ nobody figured it out at the time. This was the costume I pulled together at the last minute for Costume College’s Saturday-night Gala. I intended to be a female drag queen — a faux queen — but everyone just thought it was me dressed up extra
This is the first version of my Venetian courtesan gown, made by Sarah. We decided to do a test-run in tourney-friendly cotton damask fabric to make sure the pattern worked before cutting into the $38/yard silk. Also, who doesn’t love having two dresses? Sarah draped the bodice based on period designs with some specific tweaks
This article is an accompaniment to a lecture and demonstration class I taught at the SCA West Kingdom’s Collegium Occidentalis XLV in November 2010 and at Costume College in July 2011. It’s intended as a practical lesson in how to recreate the look of upper-class hair fashions of late 16th-century England. The first half of
Wherein I cross-dress to portray part of Marie-Antoinette’s court as we frolic at the Petit Trianon…,