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!

All finished!

So the black Marie Antoinette is all done! Yay! Now I can relax and chill before Halloween... well, mostly. Next comes the shoes and shortening the shift. I'm also waiting on a wig to arrive, which means I have to decorate it. Not so bad except I'm going on vacation... Hmm... Better hustle.

So here is Marie:

Some notes on finishing up this gown:

I added a silk gown skirt under the tulle, instead of just adding more layers of tulle, like I planned. I thought it looked better and more full. Tulle is also a nightmare to work with, so it was easier for me to make a real anglaise skirt.

I boned the center front edges and the center back with reed from Corsetmaking Supplies. I bought this ages ago - it doesn't look like they still carry it. But basically it is flat 1/4 reed that comes in a big bundle. It's relatively flexible and it cuts very easy.

The sleeves are trimmed with one inch black lace (I don't know where I got it) and black schlung sequins from MJ Trim.

The tucker at the neckline is black organza ribbon, basted into the neckline, with one of the finished ends cut off. The front piece is gathered and will be pinned to the stays prior to wearing the dress. I did not attach this to the front, since it would overlap at the center and look funny.

Marie is on her way!

She doesn't look very exciting now, but it's a good start... See below.

The sequined lace has arrived!

I woke up this morning and the sequined tulle I ordered from Thunderlily arrived. Yay! And it is beautiful! Prettier in person than on the website. And the edge has a lovely scalloped finish that the website didn't show, so I'm double pleased.

The black tulle also came a couple days ago. While I wait for the black silk to arrive, I'm working backwards, so I started on the overskirt. I've started with two layers of tulle, pleated to attach to the bodice. The dress from the movie closes at the back, but I'm going to make it have a front closure to make it easier on myself - both in general fit (it's more forgiving if you change size a little) and ease of dressing. I think I'm going to add two more layers because as of now it doesn't look luxurious and pouffy enough, but yikes, tulle is a nightmare to cut properly. It has so much give. To help in cutting, I laid it out on the carpet and stuck pins into the edges, down into the carpet. It helped make the fabric more stable and less slithery. After pleating, I sewed down the pleats on the machine and zig-zag stitched the edge to keep it more orderly.

I want to be her! ...for Halloween

Yesterday talk of Halloween parties came up and I was like, eh, uh, hmm... I don't know what I want to be. And you would think, with all the pictures of costumes I see on a daily basis I would know one right off. So I started browsing and when I saw this pic I was like DONE! I think it's fabulous for halloween. Just poofy and sparkly and wonderful enough! 

Here are some close ups of the costume from the movie: