Supanova 2011 Take 2 - Friday

Lucky that we are, Brisbane got a second Pop Culture Convention this year - a second dose of Supanova. It's the pre-emptive change to future April Supanova on the Gold Coast and November Supanova in Brisbane. Of course, I will be going to both next year. But as it happens, a couple weekends ago, I spent my time at the show grounds for our very own second 2011 Brisbane Supanvoa. It was an action packed weekend which I thankfully managed to hold off getting sick until I got home on Sunday night.

Friday saw me head in for the evening with my cousin and fellow costumer visiting from Sydney. I took the opportunity to re-wear my Sister of the Dark costume. But with it being night time and all, I popped a tiny torch in my lantern so that it would glow nicely. We shopped around for a bit before heading over the opening ceremony where we sat back to the comical stylings of the weekend resident comedian.

A ball of a time

Last Saturday night, I attended the Playford Ball in Brisbane with a group of friends from the Australian Costumers Guild and my re-enactment group. There was a large number of us attending all in regency costume. I ran a regency specific hair and makeup workshop in the afternoon. I ended up styling many a regency do. I think it was very successful and I was glad to practice my hair styling skills again. I even talked my dad into letting me style his hair in a more regency manner. It really made a difference in how he looked, so I am completely prepared to style his hair again next time I dress him up in regency.

Somehow I managed to get my mum's new Regency robe ready in time for her to wear. It's made out of a black crinkle georgette that has a flocked spot and black embroidery. It was one of the pieces of fabric that I picked up for her quite some time ago. I've had the robe cut out for some time, but just no time to make it up. Ironically, I got it done in a couple of evenings work. The robe has a full gathered 3/4 length sleeve, the back of the bodice is fitted but the front gathers up with black velvet ribbon under the bust. A couple of tucked pleats on each side of the bust make the bodice fit over the bust line. I love how it turned out and it was so lovely to be able to surprise my mum with it. And I really love the contrast of the black robe of the bright yellow gown.

The other thing that I whipped up for the event was a turban for myself. With the half turquoise hair that I now have, I felt that I needed to cover up my hair a bit, and unfortunately a wig is not really the best idea for regency. I forgot to take any construction photos, but I fully intend to make another one, and will make sure that I do then. It was extremely simple to make - a round of fabric gathered up and stitched to a bias hair band. Then decorated. I would like to try some more complex turbans in the future, but this served the purpose wonderfully. And I was lucky enough to have some left over purple silk in my stash that was a good match for my dress.

BVFF

Back at work today to rest after a busy weekend. It started on Friday night with a trip to the Vintage Fashion Fair after work. My cousin and I knocked off work, dressed in our vintage best and headed on over to Ascot (the racegrounds where the fair is held).

I re-wore my 1950s red dress styled with Victory rolls, a vintage hair snood and wedge shoes. In hindsight, the shoes were not such a good idea. My feet were killing me by the time that we got home. But I did score on some very neat finds. My cousin found me long red gloves that match my dress. I also picked up two vintage military hats - a ladies airforce hat and an army hat. I have always wanted to do vintage military outfits, and now this is the perfect opportunity. I also picked up some vintage underwear - 3 half slips and 1 full slip and a 1940s style floral dress. I find it strange in that a year ago, there is no way that I would have found vintage slips, but this year there was an abundance. My dad also scored well - he got a full 1970s suit. It fits him perfectly and looks really great.

But I did have a lovely evening out and am definitely looking forward to the next Vintage Fashion Fair. We have been tossing around ideas for our next outfits, and believe there will be some upcoming 1970s ensembles. I am kinda keen for a halter-neck flared pantsuit.

ACG Victorian Picnic

On Sunday, I hosted a Victorian picnic for the Australian Costumers Guild. It's a little late in the year in Australia to be holding an event when you are layered up several times with undergarments, corsets, petticoats and all the dress layers, but it turned out to be a lovely day with a fantastic breeze blowing in off the Brisbane river. We set up at Newstead House for the event where we spread out our picnic blankets under a large shady tree. Along for the day were members from RIFF (my re-enactment group) The Queensland Scottish Volunteer Core (my cousin's re-enactment group), Dance Kaleidoscope (my dance group) the ACG (of course) as well as family members and a few new faces to the Victorian costume scene. All in all we had about 40 people attend, making this one of the largest Brisbane events ever. Not only did we all sit down to lunch, we spent time taking photos (of course), playing croquet, graces and battledores as well as dancing. It was a thoroughly relaxing day.

And it was a huge success. Everyone expressed that they had a wonderful time and really look forward to hopefully doing it again next year.

As for costumes, I took along my parents with me. They both wore costumes that I made them a couple of years ago for another Victorian event. My mum in an 1840s skirt, blouse and bonnet and my dad in a full Victorian suit. As for myself, I took the opportunity to make a new costume that I have been itching to make. You will most likely notice that it is the same fabric as my existing gold Natural Form bustle gown, but when you can buy 3 metre wide fabric for $7.95, what else are you going to do? I made three new pieces for this ensemble (all based from Truly Victorian Patterns - with a lot of tweaking). The first is a fantail skirt with a pleated ruffle at the hem. The technique for pleating that I used it one that I learnt on making my 1836 gown a few years ago. The ruffle is pleated in the middle using box pleats which then have white velvet ribbon sew over the stitching. The top of the ruffle is flat pleated in one direction. this gives a twisted puff sort of effect. The second layer of my costume is the apron. It is made from "sherbert" colour dupion silk from Eastern Silks. It is essentially the long draped overskirt, except that I made it longer. I added a fringe trim to the hem and tassels at each side seam. The third piece of the costume is the bodice. It is the Natural Form Dinner Bodice with a bit of tweaking. I made the point in the front a lot deeper and the scoops over the hip higher to reflect a number of fashion plates that I had seen. I also made sure that the tail at the back was large enough that I could wear the bustle bad I made last year under it. I was so happy that I could finally wear it! The bodice is then trimmed with white silk bias binding, a couple more tassels and some metal buttons that I had in my stash. The hat, is from when I wore my other natural form day gown.

I am so extremely pleased with how the whole ensemble turned out. Though I must say, in the yellow and orange, I really really stand out in a crowd. I will disabuse any illusions that the gold fabric is silk; it isn't. It just has the right sort of slub and sheen that it looks like a silk, but it really is a polyester. Big tip off is the salvage of the fabric with its melted edges. But hey, I love the colour and I love how it all turned out. One of the things I am most excited about though is the ability to nix and match my two different costumes now. They are both Natural form, so it gives me a lot of freedom, but all in all, I have 2 skirts, 1 apron and 3 bodices that I can put together. And I still have fabric of both the gold and the orange left over. I am thinking that somewhere down the track I will make another apron and maybe another bodice. I think it just makes my wardrobe just that bit more versatile. There may be a new hat waiting to be made as well....

Pot Luck, Retro Style

So, the plans for last weekend kinda feel through completely. I was supposed to be out camping in style. Regency style that is. But the weather forecast all week was looking like rain on Saturday. And not just a little rain, a whole bundle of rain. So we cancelled. Thursday saw parts of Brisbane hit by a pretty big storm, Friday we had a little more rain, and then Saturday came around. Bright sunshiney skies, getting rather hot throughout the day and then it hit. Hail. The storm hit the northern suburbs of Brisbane (including where we were supposed to be camping). The hail was coming down at a 45 degree angle, and some of the larger ones to hit out house were the size of marbles. The noise on our patio was incredible - even yelling, we could not hear each other talking.

It all cleared in time and we were rather pleased that we had not gone camping. Knowing my luck, I would have ended up with dents in my car, a soaked shelter and furniture and ruined another of my regency dresses with mud and water. So, instead we put together an evening of retro pot luck. We all dressed up in our vintage dresses and sat down to dinner and cocktails. We rounded out the evening with singstar and parfait. I had a lovely evening and was glad for such a simple night.

 I didn't take many photos, so you will have to imagine the dress. It was so nice to just pull out an existing dress with no muss or fuss or panicky last minute preparations. I wore my yellow 1950s dress again and paired it with some wedges to get into the spring feel of the evening. I did make sure to get some snaps of my mum's hair. I did her up with a 60s beehive. I think she was a little overwhelmed by the hair, but it was fun to do a beehive on someone other than myself. (I seemed to be able to get a lot more height into it when I am not doing my own hair). Go figure.