The other day, one of my oldest and closest friends, Jose, text me and suggested Downton and tea.
Um, of course.
Naturally the Titanic tea cups had to come out. I should mention that Jose and I used to sit in fourth grade together and squeal about the movie. I squealed about the dresses and he squealed about more manly things, like turbines and smoke stacks lol. But anyway, Titanic related squealing goes way back for us. When I bought the teacups, he was the first person I texted.
So, if you give a mouse a cookie, or rather, if you give a costumer a tea cup, she's going to get inspired... The tea cup lead to a whole afternoon of finding Edwardian bits in my closet and roping in Jose for an impromptu photo shoot. Jose just got back from dressing back stage at fashion week, so I felt very privileged. Squeal, again.
I love using Pinterest to get my thoughts together, so check out my board of Edwardian eye candy that inspired us for the shoot. Lots of Lilly Elsie...
The dress is an eBay find and it has been patiently waiting it's turn to be reintroduced to the world. It's a beautiful dress of ivory silk and lace. It looks early teens to me, for sure. Amazingly, it fits me, and luckily, it is in strong enough condition to try on. Unfortunately, though, it's too fragile to actually wear anywhere.
It's has surprisingly simple construction for an Edwardian gown, with no boning or inner bodice, so I would love to recreate it one day. Scroll on down for a bunch of pictures of the inside.
I wore it with vintage kidskin gloves, my Astoria shoes, some pearls my Grandmother gave me and a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous fan I picked up on my last trip to England. Underneath, I have some Edwardian era slips and a corset I got a while back from Period Corsets. And I must say, long line Edwardian corsets are not so comfortable. Something about how they constrict the hips. It took some getting used to.
