Costume Season Wrap-up

Let me purge the system of the last 3 months worth of costume fun, and then maybe I'll move back to the subject of vintage clothing.

First, in early October, during Artswalk, artist Melora Kuhn and Dina Palin hosted a Victorian Dinner in the shop window of Historical Materialism.  It was dinner, costume, and photography all in one.  I called it the Fishbowl Feast; this picture was taken by Melora from the sidewalk outside.

We should definitely do this more often. 

Window Mannequin Izzy wore the still-high-in-google-rankings Morticia dress

while I got busy on my Halloween costume of an Earl dog.

If you don't know what an Earl dog (or cat) is, you don't live in Hudson, and are missing out on a wonderful local institution: the Earl painting.  Earl is a local artist who sells his work on the street.

Cats, dogs, birds, celebrities, musicians are his favorite subject matter.

He also does commissions, and makes house calls. 

Gretchen and I dressed up as an Earl cat and dog for Halloween.  

On the night of the big party, there was freak blizzard here in Hudson, and I had to leave my bootie paws at home

but I so enjoyed being anonymous all night, and I'm quite sure I want to do another paper mache costume again next year.

My dog head even had a moving jaw and wagging tongue, held on with (hard to find!) paper fasteners.

For Halloween Day/Evening, I opted for a Tweed Ride around town dressed as Miss Elmira Gulch. 

photo by Trixie Starr

(The zombie crawl thing I attempted in 2010 never caught on but I'm still game if anyone's interested in 2012)

I had a basket and a Toto, and might've freaked a few kids out, but it was fun, and I managed to keep the long skirt out of the spokes and chain somehow.

A few days later I got to revive some of my vintage Barbie costume at a Habitat for Humanity fashion show.  According to stats, this Barbie is still the main reason anyone ever visits this crappy blog.

photo by Aaron Enfield

My last-minute Winter Walk costume was basically a recycle/rehash of my 2010 Gaga costume,

photo by Gretchen Kelly

with a long sparkly dress added, and silver crown, gloves and boots.

This costume was very popular with the hundreds (Thousands?) of children out that night, and I plan to do it again next year.  I need to name it though. I got called everything: "Glinda" "Glenda", "Wanda" "the Fairy Godmother,"  "the Fairy Princess"  and the "Wicked Witch of the West".(?)

Christmas came and went , and I forgot to wear this wonderful old red and green dirndl I bought over the summer. 

 I seem to have accumulated a nice assortment of vintage dirndls, and they are for sale---but you have to ask to see them.  Hit me up, even if only to ponder

the amazing smocking on these things.

Lastly, New Year's Eve.

For the Red Dot Moulin Rouge party, Gretchen and I dressed up as can-can girls. 

                        Before we went out, Gretchen did some quick paintings

                                                         which are for sale, and

 

 can be seen better on her blog,  Gretch Kelly Art.

The Fairy Gaga Halloween Costume

I started on my Halloween costume early this year, as I usually do---with one big difference-- I didn't really know what I was going to be.   All I really knew was a) I wanted to wear a pleather dominatrix suit I'd picked up at Salvation Army last summer, and b) I wanted to try my hand at making a cage/hoop skirt from scratch.  At some point Lady Gaga entered into the non-idea, as well as the fact that I was attending a "Witches' Ball", so I just kept improvising and struggling along with multiple concepts, hoping for the best.  

ie. sleeve design fail 

Hurdles included bad wigs, challenging sleeves, fabric shortages, and what felt like seven thousand trial-and-error measurements getting the hoop skirt to look right.

many, many glue sticks into the project....

Much as I adore hours and hours wielding a glue gun, my favorite moment in the whole costume process came when I spotted the plastic Princess tiaras at Ye Olde Dollar Store, which I envisioned as brilliant sparkling epaulets.

The stars for the wand were also from the Dollar Store:

I did not decide on the fairy wings until just hours before the party, when I saw them at Rite-Aid while buying candy.  I bought them and changed the fabric and trim, using an old pair of silver pantyhose.   The wings provided a nice backdrop for the puffy sleeves, but made a fairy princess silhouette, which conflicted conceptually with the witch's hat. Uh-ooh...whatever.  With one more day I may have made a Glinda from Oz crown for the top instead, but --my time was up. 
>

In the end, it all somehow came together.

(Thank You to Scott Baldinger and Gretchen Kelly for use of their photos here )

More than You want to know about the Cleo Costume

but I'm putting it out there anyway

Halloween isn't officially over until I've crammed my costume into the costume closet and blogged about it.

In the 6 weeks leading up to Halloween this year, this scrappy little blog received over 3500 hits, from people checking out my Barbie and Morticia Addams costumes. People definitely appreciate the effort of a homemade costume, judging from my image-google ranking. (One woman even called the shop and pleaded with me to rent the Barbie costume to her -just name any rediculous price! --I declined).

For my Cleopatra costume, I did some image-googling myself, and made an inspiration file, from which I created a sketch that incorporated all my favorite elements : A headress, a collar, simple straight skirt and sash, and meshy cape.

This did not involved any dressmaking or fancy skills. I simply pulled together a bunch of parts that all fit together into a bigger picture. Ultimately, this costume is just a combination of circles, rectangles and triangles dressed up in gold, with some dollar-store spiders, snakes, and rubber cockroaches thrown in.

90% of the materials were recycled, (big thank you to Carol Lavender at The Second Show Thrift Shop for the shower curtain and mesh!)

The first thing I tackled was the headress, built from a vintage nurse's cap I found in my own archive of tattered junk.

Painted it gold



And then just kept adding adding adding.

using gold trims and hand-cut craft materials.



The collar was a disk, made from the shower curtain and reenforced with interfacing,

and attached to a cheap second hand snaky choker necklace, then adorned with

cake decorating leaves, plastic fan parts, and the cockroaches.

Anything that wasn't already gold was spray-painted gold.

The cummberbund is a rectangle of shower curtain fabric


rouched and gathered party-popper style, with a zipper added.

And underneath the cummerbund is a thrift store slip that has a rectangle of gold hanging from the front and back, basted on.



(all parts, including skirt, are jazzed up with hot-glued details. Here, more trim and painted doilies)

Then a tie-shaped sash is attached to the cummerbund, using hooks and eyes, Jazzed up with Egyptian symbols cut out from leftover scraps.

The deco shaped mesh cape was adorned with gold x-mas beading (also from Carol) and attached to arm bangles (paper lanterns) with hooks and eyes:



I sacrificed last year's Morticia wig so I wouldn't have to buy a new one.

Here's Gretchen chopping it off during the "dress rehearsal":


And here's the lovely portrait she painted that day:


which I have to admit looks way more elegant than the actual finished product:

But I had a blast nevertheless.

Fun to make,

Fun to wear!:

(photo by Walter Hill)