Marie Antoinette at the Masquerade!
So this weekend I attended a Halloween Masquerade Ball at the Harvard Club in downtown Boston. This is one of the reasons that I decided to go big for Halloween this year and finally make an 18th century gown. Last year I made 6 costumes for myself and my roommates (were were dead Disney Princesses) and it was pretty stressful getting everything done, so I said, I'm just going to do my own costume and that way it could be a little more involved.
Wow. Did I bite off a bit more than I could chew or what? But I'm happy I did it. I made my first corset ever (well, stays really), all the underpinnings and even got some experience altering patterns! I am by no means an expert, but I feel like I'm ready to tackle more challenging historical costumes after this. Maybe even drafting my own patterns (if I can get a dress form in the near future)! This entire costume took me about three weeks of sewing when I could (weekends and evenings) but that also included most of the shopping time as well. Plus making the shoes and even a wig to go with it.
Anyway I'm still not 100% done with everything, but it was done enough to wear! I still need to bind the bottom tabs of the stays, and I want to add some pinked/runched trim to the overskirt as well. It's also no where near 100% historically accurate. I was under time constraints (I decided on this costume in Sept) and I ran into some set-backs along the way. Plus since I've never drapped a pattern I used a Simplicity pattern for the dress, so the "stomacher" is not seperate, it has an invisible zipper in the back *gasp*, and the teal fabric in the front is no where near accurate. I also used ribbon trim that was already pleated and I even spray painted the lace silver!
So even though it's not accurate and it's even not as big as I wanted it (I'm not happy with the side pocket pannier pattern, but I just went with it as a learning experience and then decided to just stick with the pattern for ease sake) I'm still overall generally happy with it. Especially with the reaction it got from everyone at the Ball. This was not a "period costume" ball (all the dancing was modern, they just called it a ball) but just a general Halloween/Masquerade dance, so I was not worried about what other people might say about it. And really, all I said most of the night was "Thank you!" as I got compliments even before people found out I'd made it myself!
Anyway, onto the pictures! And onto dreaming about my next project!
I did my own hair rather than wear a wig (see the last post, it just looked bad... which was ok for being dead, but I wanted to really look like Marie Antoinette for the Ball). I was mostly happy with how it turned out but I wanted it to have more curl to it at the top, kind of like Kirsten Dunst's hair in the MA movie. The fan I used was also not very historically accurate, but is actually a Spanish fan that belongs to my Grandma, it has an 18th century painted scene on it though, so it was pretty close (except for the lace, and I would have liked the sticks to be something other than black and gold).
Anyway, comments are appreciated so let me know what you think!
Wow. Did I bite off a bit more than I could chew or what? But I'm happy I did it. I made my first corset ever (well, stays really), all the underpinnings and even got some experience altering patterns! I am by no means an expert, but I feel like I'm ready to tackle more challenging historical costumes after this. Maybe even drafting my own patterns (if I can get a dress form in the near future)! This entire costume took me about three weeks of sewing when I could (weekends and evenings) but that also included most of the shopping time as well. Plus making the shoes and even a wig to go with it.
Anyway I'm still not 100% done with everything, but it was done enough to wear! I still need to bind the bottom tabs of the stays, and I want to add some pinked/runched trim to the overskirt as well. It's also no where near 100% historically accurate. I was under time constraints (I decided on this costume in Sept) and I ran into some set-backs along the way. Plus since I've never drapped a pattern I used a Simplicity pattern for the dress, so the "stomacher" is not seperate, it has an invisible zipper in the back *gasp*, and the teal fabric in the front is no where near accurate. I also used ribbon trim that was already pleated and I even spray painted the lace silver!
So even though it's not accurate and it's even not as big as I wanted it (I'm not happy with the side pocket pannier pattern, but I just went with it as a learning experience and then decided to just stick with the pattern for ease sake) I'm still overall generally happy with it. Especially with the reaction it got from everyone at the Ball. This was not a "period costume" ball (all the dancing was modern, they just called it a ball) but just a general Halloween/Masquerade dance, so I was not worried about what other people might say about it. And really, all I said most of the night was "Thank you!" as I got compliments even before people found out I'd made it myself!
Anyway, onto the pictures! And onto dreaming about my next project!
I did my own hair rather than wear a wig (see the last post, it just looked bad... which was ok for being dead, but I wanted to really look like Marie Antoinette for the Ball). I was mostly happy with how it turned out but I wanted it to have more curl to it at the top, kind of like Kirsten Dunst's hair in the MA movie. The fan I used was also not very historically accurate, but is actually a Spanish fan that belongs to my Grandma, it has an 18th century painted scene on it though, so it was pretty close (except for the lace, and I would have liked the sticks to be something other than black and gold).
Anyway, comments are appreciated so let me know what you think!