Herein are the chronicles of my little part in the massive, nine-costumer group to recreate the Portrait of the Empress Eugenie Surrounded by her Maids of Honor (1855) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. We entered the historical masquerade competition at Costume-Con 26 in San Jose, 2008, and won Best in Show. My costume is that of
I’ve lived in the South Bay most of my life, yet somehow I’d never visited Hakone Gardens. It’s been nestled in the Saratoga foothills since 1918 & open to the public for nearly 40 years. What a treasure this place is! Delicate & structured yet wild & natural, all at the same time. Gentle waterfalls,
Finally! The gown itself is done! Finished the last rows of the blasted ruffles and hemmed and trimmed the skirt. I love the ruffled skirt now — when I put it on, I realized how perfect the ruffles go with the polonaise. Ruffles give extra fullness, as a petticoat would, but better. The pouf of
Note to self: Never, ever sew anything with more than one ruffle ever again. The ruffled skirt is killing me. Hemming and trimming the ruffles was a piece o’ frickin’ cake compared to actually gathering and attaching the ruffles. All nine goddamned rows of ruffles. I used to think it’d be neat to someday make
I hemmed and trimmed all the jillion miles of ruffles for the skirt. Hemming would have been enough of a pain (though let us all take a moment to praise the high and mighty rolled-hem foot!). But I had to go and edge each layer of ruffles with narrow black lace. Yes, I am officially
Finished the base of the skirt, including the cartridge pleating at the center back. And I took the GBACG’s parasol re-covering workshop, where I covered a reproduction Victorian parasol frame with the sushi fabric and red contrast. I bought some black venice lace from Cheeptrims to edge the parasol & the polonaise & for the
Finished the muslin for the polonaise tunic and started sewing the polonaise itself. The pattern was a decent fit, but needed some tweaks. Modifying the fit was made more difficult by the three long, lengthwise darts in the front of the bodice. I had to reshape and expand them a bit. Also had to take
While I’d planned to buy the fabric from Repro Depo, I ended up buying the five yards of bright red cotton printed with rows of sushi and sashimi from an eBay seller. I’d had Past Patterns’ 1880s Polonaise With Walking Skirt pattern for years but never made it up. It seemed a good choice for