Ladies Victorian Costume, Halloween 2015

Usually I make a big deal for Halloween. The house gets decked in its bi-yearly theme (witches) for one night. All the monsters come out, revolting amounts of candy are handed over and much coffee is consumed by dedicated parents. This year, however, the Rogues were sewing and doing a final fitting until 4pm. Here’s what we made.

A Victorian costume, complete with corset, walking skirt, apron over-skirt and tailcoat jacket. The majority of the costume is a heathered gray cotton of mid-weight with trim in blue poly satin and some matching blue braid.

The tailcoat is based on a tailcoat vest I made for a previous Halloween costume, which was based on a simple princess seamed vest pattern. The overskirt is a 1871 pattern from Truly Victorian, which we changed to be reversible (gray on the other side), the skirt is based on an 1895 skirt and includes period accurate pockets! They hang inside from one central point and are accessed by a slit in their center.

The piece you aren’t seeing is the under bust corset, which can be found here.

I’m pretty happy with the way the tails hang gracefully. The decision not to line them was a good one. I think they would have looked to heavy. The front of the coat will hang better without the overskirt beneath it.

The other part I’m particularly pleased with is the trim on the sleeve cuffs and apron hem. It’s the same gray as the general ensemble, pleated. I was initially going to put a strip of blue fabric over the seam of the cuffs, but happily found that nice blue trim.

This was a fast project and there were lesions learned about fitting, allowances that must be made for corsetry (we almost always steampunk and wear out unmentionables on the outside), equipment limitations, the squirelieness of satin, and timing.

In the future we would like to make some small adjustments to the apron to make it truly reversible, add some blue braid trim to it’s ruffle and probably make an alteration to the skirt.

And that’s not all. We also did some tailoring to the lady’s husband’s Victorian ensemble; adding pockets to his vest, hidden pockets to his tailcoat and Henning the pants. I’m sure they were quite a pair.

Next year there will be better planning and timing so people can have their costumes and I can have my usual Halloween fun. (Not that we didn’t have fun, it was just compressed.)

 

Victorian costume tailcoat in progress

Here’s the tailcoat in progress. The second sleeve has now been attached, and it’s hemmed. Everything is going well. I made a small for adjustment to the bust. Now I just need to match the shape of the facing to the new line and add the embellishments to the cuffs.

Should be complete Friday and I’ll will update with full costume shots.

 

Victorian costume fitting

We’re working on a custom Victorian costume for Halloween. What you’re looking at above is the fitting for the jacket. You can also see the bottom of the apron-type overskirt and the skirt. What you’re not seeing is the final shape of the jacket, which will be a tailcoat.

The apron overskirt has some pleats in the sides and basically a really wide tie in the back.

Here’s a bit of a bonus. I really didn’t know how the back of the corset was going to work, particularly with the tie on the overskirt acting like a bit of a bustle. Here’s what is going to happen. It’s going to divide the tails.

 

SLO Tweed Ride 2013

I’m happy to say that I’ve found out the date for the SLO Tweed Ride before it happens this year. It will be happening May 5, 2013 at Triangle park, 1pm.

You can view the group’s blog here and their facebook page here. Unfortunately, there isn’t much detail on exactly what will be happening, but you can view their previous years’ photos to get an idea. I don’t know if the Rogues will be in attendance, but it sure does look fun!

 

SteamPunk Mardi Gras 2012

You get a pretty good view of the horse at about the one minute mark.

Gnostalgia

A Young group of “Artists” put together a steampunk trojan horse to use as a Mardi Gras float as they party their way past Rouses (A&P) through the French Quarter, New Orleans LA, Mardi Gras 2012

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Beyonce’ goes steampunk?

I don’t know if I’d call this Steampunk, but it is pretty interesting. I love the red boots! i watched it with the sound off, so I can’t make any comment about the track.

Gnostalgia

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Have you heard of Urban Threads?

Urban Threads creates and offers embroidery patterns that are modern, funky and well designed. They also show off all sorts of interesting ways to apply them on their site and blog, Stitchpunk. I heard about them quite a while back and can’t believe I haven’t shared this very cool site. They make me wish I had an embroidery machine, though I’m not sure I need another facet to my hobby list. Check out their look book here!

 

A Quirky Steampunk Wedding

Image via RuffledBlog with many additional images here.

For your appreciation, a well done, quirky and unique steampunk wedding.

Themed weddings can feel odd and a bit awkward. Maybe that’s just someone from the outside looking in and not “getting” the people involved, but you have to agree that some are done better than others.

If you think about it, wedding clothes are a kind of costume. At what other events do you wear frivolous skirts, special high-heeled shoes, corsetry and spend a bunch of money to get your hair and make-up done just so? Perhaps some of you are thinking that you do some of that every day. Bravo to you. The world could use more daily hat-wearers and sporters of frock coats and monocles. OK, maybe not the monocles. But for most of us, playing dress-up is a special thing, whether it’s for a wedding, formal dance, new year’s party or reenactment. Why not toss out the typical white dress and matching bridesmaids for something more unique? After all, those traditions aren’t set in stone. The white dress didn’t become de riguor until Queen Victoria’s wedding. I like the idea of a truly unique wedding from the non-traditional clothes down to the little details. Please have a look at the entire blog post here with information and vendor contacts from the happy couple.

Should you happen to live in Australia, there is a company, Gallery Serpentine Boutique, that provides free planning services for your alternative steampunk wedding needs as well as costume pieces in the neo-Victorian-Gothic-circus range of clothing.

Enjoy!

 

We’re Back – Now with More Steampunk!

Please excuse the hiatus. We Rogues have been bashing our brains and sewing our fingers to the bone on some bridesmaid’s dresses that were more difficult than anticipated. But more on that when we get some decent photos.

Now for Steampunk!

Men of the Prada Steampunk Menswear Fall 2012 Ad Campaign

Prada is doing steampunk, perhaps inspired by the recent Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock films? This is the Prada 2012 Fall Menswear Campaign, featuring Gary Oldman, Jamie Bell, Garrett Hedlund, and Willem Dafoe (photographed by David Sims). I’m really enjoying pretty much everything the always excellent Gary Oldeman is wearing. All that’s missing are the goggles (though I do note some little round red sunglasses). Here’s the entire post and here are images from the runway show via http://www.tomandlorenzo.com.

 

The Steampunk Jones

I have been jonesing for a Steampunk event. I missed the Steampunk Symposium aboard the  Queen Mary in January and will likely miss the GasLight Gathering in San Diego. But now there is another new event, the Clockwork Academy (in San Jose) May 24 through 28th. It’s put on by the Fanime people, and is the same weekend, but held at a different location, the DoubleTree Hotel. Hmmm… worth a look-see.

Here is a whole list of Steampunk events for 2012, via Gnostalgia.