A Halloween party and a most awesome pouf...

The pouf! Omagosh it was large - and heavy - but it was a blast to wear! I got the wig from Antoinette's Atelier. She makes the most amazing and beautiful wigs. My own hair is powdered and incorporated into the front. It was actually very easy to do. To attach the wig, I left an inch of hair out along my hairline, from ear to ear, then put the wig on, securing it along the front with a bunch of pins inserted at an angle, not straight back, so they would catch my hair underneath. Then I curled the hair left out with a small barrel iron and pinned sections back into the wig. You can see what hair is mine in the pictures pretty easily, but in person it looked more like part of the wig. Then I sprayed hair spray and took a brush full of Ageless Artiface Perfumed Powder and coated my hair before the spray could dry. Be generous with the powder - the more the better. It will probably go everywhere, so be prepared. I put everything on but my dress before the powdering commenced. When I had sufficient powder I sprayed again... Then powdered again... Then sprayed yet again. I will say, it stayed pretty powdery throughout the night. Success! I also used a little of Ageless Artiface's Liquid Rouge. It's a lovely color, but it stains your fingers/countertops/everything like crazy, so proceed with caution.

And the pouf from all angles...

The plumes are ostrich feathers. Each plume has three or four feathers sewn together down the spine. To get the plumes to curl forward I wrapped them around my fingers and gently curled them into shape. Each plume is sewn to a bobby pin. Once pinned into the wig, I used a couple more bobby pins to secure it in place. The sparkly swag is actually a necklace from Forever 21. I pulled off the chain and pinned the decorative part into the wig. After these close ups were taken I also added a marcasite, rococo bow brooch I got in Williamsburg. Never too much sparkle!

How to make the plumes: Lay the feathers on top of each other, making sure the spines are aligned from the base to the tip. If you have any slightly shorter feathers, I would recommend sandwiching them in the middle. Then starting at the base (the thickest part of the stem), secure a thread of the same color as the feathers, and start to sew, spiraling the spines, up towards the tips. This takes a bit of care to avoid tangling the thread up with the unruly feathery bits. Do keep the thread taught. When I reached the top, I doubled back a little, to a thicker part of the spines, and secured the thread and snipped the excess. Take care not to pull too tight and break/crease the spines. To attach the bobby pin at the base, I used a second length of thread, doubled it up, and wrapped the stem and the bobby pin together, passing the thread through the bend in the pin. I suppose you could also hot glue the pins on, but I'm not a huge fan of hot glue.

Some other treatments you can do to the feathers are to trim the really unruly edges, to make them more uniform, or you can curl the edges with a low heat curling iron. Apparently you can also curl them with a blunt scissors, like you would curl ribbon, but I was too scared to do this and take a chunk out. If your plumes are looking a little sad, you can fluff them over steam and it poufs them back up. You can also use a curling iron to put some curl in the top of the plumes. I just used my fingers to do this, and I blew on them a little, like when you blow on your sunglasses to clean them. It's a little warm and moist so it helps set the curl. Take care to be gentle when curling the plumes so they don't snap.

Just one of each size feather. A little sad.

Three feathers layered. Much more grand!

You can see the thread sewn around the spine of the feathers.

And some pre party pics of the whole ensemble...

And that's a palm tree behind the flapper's head...
not more plumes!

My husband's clothes were ordered from Jas. Townsend and Son. I think he's starting to come around to the whole costuming thing. At first he was like, what is this? What's with all these layers? But now, when we were in Williamsburg, he saw an 18th century hunting coat and he was like, "Can you make me one of those?" And there was this little twinkle in his eye. Ooo someone caught the bug!

Halloweens Past

As I was browsing through my computer this morning, I came across some fun costumes from past Halloweens. Thought I'd share some pictures and how to's. Have a Happy Halloween everybody!

Last year around Halloween I got a little obsessed with watching The Tudors. A few weeks before Halloween I decided I wanted a Tudor gown so my Husband and I ordered some costumes online, thinking I had no time to make one. Well his turned out great, but mine didn't fit at all and was just a polyester mess, so two weeks before Halloween I bought fabric and stitched my little heart out! Actually I don't really remember rushing. Just sitting on the couch for days, watching Ghost Adventures and putting this together. Love it! I want to wear it again some day. I wish I had a picture of me in it.

It is worn over a shift, 16th century stays, a farthingale, petticoat and a bum roll. When I wore it, I also had a girdle. I found a gorgeous one at Sapphire and Sage.

Queen Eliazabeth: Schloss Ambras Portrait Girdle
from Sapphire and Sage

I modified a simplicity pattern for it and also got some help from my Tudor Tailor book. It's not the most authentic piece, but I don't worry too much about that for Halloween. The baroque pearls and fur are real - okay well they're cultured pearls, but whatever. The black work cuffs are hand stitched by me, using an authentic tudor design. The rhinestone/satiny braided bits at the neck are actually cut up headbands from Target. Always keep your eyes peeled for items that might work in a costume! You never know where you may find things...

The pattern seems to be based on the below painting of a young Elizabeth.

Now on to the 20th century. Ooo the flapper! This was an outfit that I did not lend one stitch to, however I wanted to share it because it shows you can generally always find things in your closet to make a last minute costume. And one that looks good too!

I tried to make appropriate 1920's layers, so under the dress there is a lacey bra for flattening (gotta get that boyish look!), tap pants (if you've never seen them, they're like silk shorts) and a silk and lace slip. I wore garters to keep my seamed stockings up, but you could also roll them down and rouge your knees!

The dress is by Juicy Couture and the shoes are peep-toe, T-straps from - I think - Nine West. The fur wrap is faux fur from Forever 21. The headband is from Target. The only thing I bought for this was the wig. I got it from a Halloween store. I've had really good luck with Halloween store wigs. You just have to monkey with them a little to make them more presentable. This one was smooshed flat so I fluffed it within an inch of its life and it didn't look half bad after that!

And a side note about 20th century undies. Check out What Katie Did. They have great faux vintage lingerie.

For the makeup, in my opinion, the two most important features for the 1920s are the eyebrows and the lips. My eyebrows are much thinker than this, so I smoothed them down with pomade. You can also use bar soap straight from the bar, wax or the special stuff you get at the costume store just for smoothing down hair. I don't know what it's called. Once I had them sufficiently flattened, I dusted them with powder and used a very opaque concealer to paint out the bottom half of my eyebrow hair, so just the top half showed dark. Then I used a brow pencil to draw out the ends past their natural length. For the lips I again used the concealer. With a lipstick brush I drew on the cupid's bow shape. For the rest of the face, for evening, you can use a dramatic eye and some blush. There's a great book about vintage makeup called Retro Makeup, by Lauren Rennells. She also a great hair book, too.

Clara Bow

Please excuse the weird "look up to the left" thing I was doing. I have no idea where that came from. Maybe it was the martinis...

From The Fedora Lounge

From Victoriana Magazine

The picture below was from a looooonnngggg time ago. Pictures of the rest of the dress have evaporated, but I wanted to show the hair and how to make those side curls out of your own hair (if it's long. If it's shorter it's pretty easy). I used a small barrel curling iron and got really close to the scalp. Careful! I used as much of the hair as I could in the curl without it getting too bulky, then fastened a bobby pin through the backside. The excess hair is left hanging out the back of the curl. Here this hair is pulled back and incorporated into, I think, a bun. You could do all kinds of braiding/curling/whatever back there. 

Wiggery and poufs!

So I'm back in town and I had a fantastic trip! We went great places and I learned a ton of new things as I wandered through museums etc, and I can't wait to share! ... But, I have so many pictures I can't even face uploading them yet... So in the mean time, I thought I'd share some great wigs, since I've been working on my wig for Halloween today. Eeek! I am up to my chin in ostrich feathers!

Some tidbits about 18th century wigs...

- In America, a ladies wig could easily cost as much as 5 or 6 acres of land. This type of pricing is why only about 5% of the population wore wigs.

- How to powder: Using your fingers, apply your pomade to the hair, then using a small bellows filled with powder, puff the powder onto the wig. Apparently you would have needed to do this more than once in the course of an evening. Messy...

- The pomade was made of lard mixed with essential oils. I touched some in the wig-making shop in Williamsburg. Very interesting. If you have never touched lard it feels like shinier, oilier, whipped butter. Below is a picture of a wig bellows. The photo shows no size reference, but unlike a fire bellows, it fits in one hand.

- Since people were often shaved bald under their wigs, not everybody incorporated their natural hair into their hairstyles. One notable person who didn't wear a wig at all was George Washington. His man servant, William Lee, kept after his hair. The painting below shows George with William Lee in the background.

Painting by John Trumbull, 1780

- Over to France. The famous pouf  could reach up to three feet high. 

- Marie Antoinette often had her hair inspired by an event (pouf a la circonstance). For example, the Belle Poule. A hairdo with a naval ship of the same name adorning her hair, marking the entrance of France into the American Revolution.  There was also the pouf a l'inoculation, which commemorated Louis XVI getting his small pox vaccine. Note about that: smallpox vaccines were fairly common in Austria, but not widely recognized in France. Louis XV died of smallpox. And a side note about that too: apparently Louis XV was the first Bourbon whose heart was not cut out and put in a special box. Instead, alcohol was put over his body and he was covered in quicklime. Had to add that - it was just too strange!

- Marie also wore the pouf a la jardiniere, which included artichokes, carrots, radishes and even the head of a cabbage. This pouf may have been a pouf au sentiment. A hairstyle to express a feeling. One lady at court is quoted saying, "I shall never again wear anything but vegetables! It looks so simple, and is so much more natural than even flowers." Oh, fashion!

- Those long fancy head scratchers that ladies used were called grattoirs. They could be made of ivory, silver, gold and sometimes diamonds.

Grattoirs from a Christie's Auction. April 2006.

- To go to sleep, ladies would have their hair wrapped up in a triple bandage, grease, pins and all.

A lady getting her pouf dressed for bed..

- There was an invention called the coiffure a la grand-mere, by le Sieur Beaulard, which was a mechanism that allowed the hairdo to be lowered in stature, and then raised again, at the wearers pleasure. It was named the grand-mere, or grand mother, after the older ladies who disapproved of the new, very high hairstyles.

- To protect their amazing hair from the elements, ladies would wear a calash, a type of bonnet, structured with boning, that accordioned open. A calash covers and protects the hair without touching it and mussing it. See the lady in the black calash below.

 And I leave you with some more fab hair to drool over... Enjoy!

Pictures of my wig to come!

And this info comes with special thanks to Caroline Weber, whose book, Queen of Fashion, is a wealth of information! Thanks also to whoever was in the wig-making shop at Williamsburg, because I must have bugged them to death with questions!

The Dressed in Time Boutique

I thought I'd kick off the Dressed in Time Boutique with a little something small and fun: mouches!

Often made of silk and velvet, mouches (meaning "flys" in French) were very popular in the 18th century amongst gentlemen and ladies alike. Depending on where you put the spot on your face, it meant different things. According to Madame du Barry, a beauty spot at the corner of the mouth meant kissable, near the eye: provocative, on the nose: sassy, above the lip: flirty, and on the chin: discreet, to name a few.

The mouches I offer are hand-cut, black silk taffeta and they come in an assortment of five per package. Each package includes a heart, star, moon, diamond and circle. Enjoy!

Francois Boucher, A Lady Applying a Beauty Spot

In the future, what you can expect to find at my shop will be mostly handmade, specialty accessories and historical accoutrement, such as mouches, garters, pin balls, handkercheifs, pockets, etc. Please let me know if there is anything you would like to see for purchase in the future. Cheers!