oldrags:

Cabinet photograph by Evelyn & James, 1885 Wandsworth (London), Manchester Art Gallery

Full length portrait of a seated woman in mourning dress. Plain interior backdrop with a table to the left with a fur throw and a black dog. The woman wears her hair in a chignon with a brimless straw hat with a velvet band and bow. She is wearing a black wool and crepe dress with a fitted bodice with centre front buttons extending to a point and full length fitted sleeves with crepe cuffs. The bodice of her dress is made up of crepe with a bolero style front and a high standing collar. She has a bustle and her skirt is made up of crepe inserts and black silk.

Written on reverse in pencil “Mary Le Neve Foster / 1885 – or 1886 / In Mourning dress for her mother”

Someone asked what makes this a mourning gown (can’t reply to the ask specifically): it’s the use of crape. That particular kind was used only for mourning, not for fashion. There are many kinds of crepe but when you can see that very strong ripple effect even in these old photos that is a clear signal of mourning. 

LACMA example of a mourning veil showing how sheer and rippled it was.

She would have more crepe if it was her husband, and possibly a veil as well. I’m not entirely sure how ingrained morning rituals were below a certain class level where you could actually afford to go through the various stages of colour…

Also other fabrics were suitable for deep mourning, the duller the surface the better, but the crape is the definitive mourning fabric- then you could slowly add in satin and polished jet etc. as you passed through the stages.

ETA: WHOOPS! That’ll learn me 😉 The asker was not referring to this photo at all- scroll further grasshopper… 😉 Sorry Kate and asker 🙂  Leaving the info up for general info

viscountess:

JEREMY STOLLE DOING A PHANTOM COSTUME VIDEO WITH PHANTOM COSTUMES FEATURING PHANTOM COSTUMES.

Spazzing… see, see multiples of the Blue Dress bodices on top skirts on bottom. Just how it was backstage at Sydney 🙂 No-one ever believes me when I said there were at least three of each part of each costume and that they were bodice and skirt separates- I got sooo close to touching one of the wedding dress bodices… but we were being led to Rob’s dressing room so I didn’t get to play. The staff there were glad someone appreciated all the work thoughXD.
Also close up of SB’s Aminta dress? Love! Especially being able to see the alignment was not quite perfect- possibly a repair? Lace snags, and hand sewing snags. 
I will not make the Aminta dress, I will not…. *twitch* I still have my Elissa gown glaring at me as I work on all this sci-fi malarky.

I do think I was wrong about the Hannibal skirts though. I think they may have been done as per the US skirts, there is a fair bit of overlap of details between the two productions.

(Source: http://broadwayworld.com/)

@masseffect Nyreen tunic, in pink! Love it! If the fabric was more durable this would be turned into Nyreen’s jimjams complete with pom pom slippers. Also mirrored photo is mirrored 😉

The pattern does not include a few things but this is a guide as the fabric I will be using is bulkier than the flannel and also more yielding than the interfacing. That hood… oy! I haven’t got the piping detail on there yet, I wanted the shape first. The actual fabric will drape very nicely and I’ve used it for my Shaak Ti robes and Tykhi skirt already 🙂 It also flares really nicely when bound in the silver fabric I plan on trimming this with.

Next step is to debate getting fabric custom printed or not. I may be able to find some textured lycra anyway and overdye/airbrush some shading in to it.

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Rebel Legion workshop this weekend, AKL

http://www.rebellegion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44632

This event will be run in Auckland (Birkenhead), but will be an all day event to make it worthwhile attending for current or prospective members who are from other regions – starting from 10am, and running through to about 5pm (…or maybe even later…might turn into a barbecue in the evening, depending on numbers). 

If you want to get advice about any costumes, help others with their costume projects, make progress on your own projects, or just swap ideas and discuss Good Guy costuming in general, this will be a great opportunity. We’ll have on hand examples of Rebel Pilots, Clones, Royalty costumes, Jedi, and more. Bring your finished or in progress costumes along for show-and-tell…we can even muster up props, droids, other costumers etc for a few photoshoots. 

Just thought I’d boost the signal again 🙂 Not sure how many people here are from NZ or Auckland specifically 🙂 I’m hoping to do a follow up workshop in a month too (hands on with latex and fibreglass for those who are okay with muck! and smell!) so would like to be able to chat one on one with people here 🙂

Easiest way to make sure the hosts know are to reblog this or PM via facebook or… sign up to the boards!!! XD But sooner rather than later please 🙂

Just text this time

@masseffect Nyreen hood, cowl and collar drafting took one and a half Eddie Izzard shows. That is not normal for a hood! It does crazy things and I get to decide where the seams go in the cowl because there are none. Sigh.

No it’s okay. The rest is easy. right? Cry!

But basically the hood and cowl and collar are going to be one piece regardless of what the artist intended 😉 It’ll snap to the harness though. Which will snap to the tunic. Sadly the Obi is not self supporting, that downward curve of the belt piece really does stop it being an effective cincher. So internal trickery shall be needed.

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@masseffect Nyreen progress! Again sorry for bathroom photos but this is the best lit mirror in the house at this time of day and I do not fancy setting my tripod out and all the rigmarole it takes to get my camera to focus when taking self portraits (I need to have a stand in or the camera focuses on the background…. I usually use a Christmas tree stand, vacuum tube and wig head, it can be entertaining)

Anyway so this is the first successful cast! I will be using this but I want to make as many sets as I can before the mold loses too much definition. I love the texture I got on the skull but it will eventually go bye bye. The very last set will be a semi rigid urethane which I will also use to cast my Asari pieces from and any other plaster mold looking a bit dodgy.

Also, I will be using various means to hold pieces together. The pins forced curves not present and the underside of the upper lip sticks out but will be glued flat to the inside. I will be using a lot of velcro dots. They stick very well to latex indeed and will allow for fast removal in case of heatstroke. Cough, not that that happened at the Dragon*Con parade at all… cough. ehem.

I may go try and test the hood pattern. It’s crazy with overlaps and stand up collar and all that jazz.

(ETA: I use @XYZ because I cross post to twitter on this account 😉 )

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1 @masseffect Nyreen tunic mostly patterned. 2 It is a turian explosion in my workroom! 3 And why you can’t really use more than one mixture of latex in a mold. Twisty twisty mandibles from the latex on the outside shrinking more than the latex on the inside. Also from being pulled from the mold before the inside layer was fully cured.

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See that? That is effed up latex that is. I should not be able to scratch the latex like that. The liquid latex can part and as the liquid evaporates I ccould create channels, but a sharp brittle stratch in still white latex? No.

Latex in its natural state is a white liquid that turns a murky clear colour when cured. This in not cured. this has gone really horribly wrong. Eventually it will cure, oh yes. But it does so by going through a jelly like stage. This causes it to crack because there s no stretch when it is like this but it still shrinks as the water evaporates.

I thought it was me. But it is not. I tested all my methods but frankly that above should never happen.

My latex did have a pinkish tint to it, but I’ve had that before and no issue. Now to retro-research what went wrong (I have my suspicions).

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operafantomet:

glassprism:

…No, I actually, genuinely like it. It’s not my favorite of Christine’s dresses, but at least it’s better than the original “Hershey’s Kisses” dress, at least in my opinion. I’ve also seen the dresses other productions used, and thought they were… just okay. (Hungarian one looked a little too modern, the Polish one a bit cheap, mostly because it looked exactly like the dress they used in ‘Think of Me’, only a shade of pink.)

I don’t like the current UK versions of the dress, especially not the sleeveless one Sierra Boggess wore in the Royal Albert Hall concert and ESPECIALLY not the butchered one Katie Hall wears in the UK tour. I think the colours are too bright and the materials looks to synthetic. But how can you not like THIS? 

image

Or this?

image 

Crazy. Crazy, I say. 

I agree. I hated the way the dress was a flat shiny cone when I saw the London cast. But I do adore the US and Aussie versions so much. I think it is because there is a subtler layering of so many nets as well as the balance of the neckline that extends in to the sleeves.

One day I may make that dress. Gotta admit, of all the masquerade costumes I most want to make the Monkey Girl 🙂 The first time I saw the show the ballerina absolutely understood her role as a symbol, to provoke so many varied responses in Christine. Never seen it so well played since. Sigh. And her little shaking paws at the entrance of Red Death…. Wow.