Let's try something a little different!

Okay, let's try this.  I wanted to do something picture-heavy and topical today, but I'm not in the mood to code a Treasury Wednesday (on Friday), so let's play clothing-and-jewelry pairings.  I don't get to do this much in real life, since I'm the youngest of my coworkers in a fairly conservative area, so virtual dress-up it is.

For the pretty base pieces in this post, I'm using Maxi dresses from Goddiva.  Just in the interests of disclosure.

Let's start with this little mesh-insert number, which -- yes -- is sort of daring for many people, but could easily go sci-fi (Inara cosplay, anyone?) to pull it off:



It's actually transparent, not silver; that's the mannequin.  Which leaves us with any metal option we desire.  How shall we make this fantastic?  I'm thinking with a big steampunk statement necklace like this one:


Sorry, sold to a pretty lady at Upstate Steampunk!

And maybe a jeweled belt, like this nice vintage example, which would suit either the teal or the red version of the dress and, in either case, introduces another high-contrast color that would be fantastic in a draped shawl, or as earrings:

Available here from Nana's Cottage House Antiques.

Instant sleek space-opera sci-fi -- or maybe even bustle it up over a constrast underskirt and see what happens.

Less costume and more couture, you say?  Fine.  Look at this peacock-patterned garment:



You could actually wear this under a waist-length leather jacket and calf-high boots, and have a bit more of a casual-elegant look on a spring day.  Try it with a necklace that adds more visual weight to the top half of the ensemble. For this purpose, I can't decide if I prefer the knotted linen from Grey Heart of Stone on the top or the repurposed bridle rosette from Funkyjunkmama below:



Probably the bridle rosette.  It picks up the colors attractively without blending in, and has a sturdier, heavier look that will contrast well with the dress's airiness.  Hey, both!  No?

On warmer days, this dress of course demands a light shrug and a cool big bracelet like this one:


Available here with matching earrings here.

Belatedly ...

... I really should mention that the Southern steampunk cons, Upstate Steampunk and AnachroCon, are well worth the trip.  I was a vendor at Upstate Steampunk at the beginning of the month.  It was a delight to meet so many fans of such vastly varying ages -- including many of my and M's colleagues, hers at Clemson and mine at the tech college!  This included Gypsey Teague, a lovely lady who makes killer chainmaille weaponry and who organizes the event with her partner.  Overall, the con was small but profitable and with superb gaming, and despite a giggling militant vegetarian who thought she was a pagan but didn't know what a solstice was at the next vendor table, I was delighted to meet a number of other vendors of clothing, jewelry, embroidery, fine art, etc. who were simply a pleasure.

I also had the great fortune of seeing some delightfully colorful steampunk outfits, including a young authoress who had assembled a brilliant bustled tatterpunk outfit in animal print.  It worked beautifully.

M and I did some fun multicultural stuff, including (for me) a Scottish-inspired pseudo-military ensemble with a vintage woman's kilt, a wool beret, and rendundant eyewear; and (for both of us) Anglicized/Orientalized North African outfits.  Me as warrior, M as harem girl.  She pulled it off with her usual aplomb.

Please, Southern steampunks: plan for AnachroCon in Atlanta at the end of winter and Upstate Steampunk next fall.  I can staunchly assure you that you won't regret it.


Available here.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

We're a little ways back into the year now -- and incidentally, this is the part I dislike, because no one has papers yet so there are almost no students, except for the panicked older students who are expected to use technology, but aren't being taught to use it.  The other day, M and I worked with a very nice gentleman.  She taught him to make capital letters on the computer.  I taught him how a printer works.  She taught him to use the mouse.

There is a lengthy diatribe on educational priorities in here somewhere, but I will limit myself: Did it ever occur to anyone to maybe require a computer-usage placement test?  It's seemed to me since high school, when I volunteered to drive some of my friends home after they missed the bus staying late in the computer lab, that the requirement of technology usage reinforces class distinctions in educational opportunity.  Clemson University requires that every student own a laptop -- and in my current still-a-bit-under-the-weather state I can't decipher whether this fixes or exacerbates the problem.

Anyway.

We've gotten started now, but before we did, M and I went to spend a couple of days in Asheville, North Carolina, where O. Henry lived for a while.  We went on the first day to Biltmore, the Vanderbilt family's estate.  After looking at the website, I came away with the impression that it was where rich people go to buy expensive branded wines and jellies and be rich together, but M's grandmother was kind enough to give us tickets and it was absolutely and completely worth the trip.

I've been to California's Hearst Castle, which is a melange of stuff imported over the Atlantic to build a fantasy Mediterranean village -- the architect called the style of that place something like "Franco-Anglo-Arabesque-Mediterranea-Japano-Rusko-screw-the-look-whatever-my-client-wants architecture."  Biltmore was a useful companion, since it is also a very Victorian-American estate -- appropriated spoils of empire and of education, combining in a large, somewhat asymmetrical cathedral-inspired house on top of a hill -- but Biltmore is much better-designed, and you can see how people would have flowed through it, both the guests and the downstairs class.  It's useful to see how the estate would harmoniously operate.

Also, some very inspiring wallpaper-decor combinations, including some beautiful examples of using rich jewel tones to make the very Victorian damask and tapestry feel masculine -- I'd give a photo, but they apparently never release them, contributing to my previous impression that it was a fancified wealth getaway -- and some wonderful 1890s-1900s clothing was on display, including a probably Worth-inspired gown and several pieces with delightful nostalgic touches that made my inner costumer dance.

Also, this fountain:


This view of the gardens (August is not a good time for gardens in the Carolinas, but these still looked pretty good):


And this carved marble pillar from the outside, which I'd love to "translate" into a jewelry design, somehow:


As for dining in town: The Jerusalem Garden Cafe is out of this world.  We ate there the first night and went back the second.  Try their curried mango shrimp -- it's delicate and warm, not spicy, and is served over perfect couscous.  It's atmospheric and lovely, especially the floor seating, and the servers are wonderfully attentive.  Asheville's more famous Tupelo Honey Cafe, however, was terrible and not worth the wait.  M's meal, the shrimp and grits, was drenched in hot sauce (not listed on the menu) and too spicy to eat; when we remarked on it, the server suggested stirring it around a bit.  Mine was a fried chicken something-or-other and was too salty to have more than a few bites.  However, if you still want to go, the peach rosemary lemonade is delicious.

Asheville can be described like this:  If you took a mellower version of the free-spiritedness and general artsy insanity of San Francisco and fused it with the prissy exclusivity of San Diego, their hipster love child would be Asheville (two silent E's.  And it went to North Carolina.  You've probably never heard of it).  The shopping is delightful -- don't miss the Spice and Tea Exchange, where they sell ras el hanout with black pepper and hibiscus flowers, and also onion-infused sugar and powdered extract of burgundy wine.  Malaprop's Bookstore is also a must-do -- we shopped a while and then sat drinking their amazing ginger lattes for hours.  And Woolworth Walk is not to be missed -- yes, there are all kinds of little art studios down by the river, but they were like an IRL Etsy, so you might as well visit through a screen -- and also overpriced and of questionable quality.  Woolworth Walk is right in town and features some truly amazing art -- pottery, installments, and traditional.  We purchased, or rather my parents purchased us through the magic of plastic and our birthdays coming up, a piece by Brenda Marks.  It's a three-dimensional giclee over wood rendition of her photo collage "Serenity."  Here's a picture of it on our wall, but visit her site because our lighting does it no justice:


Doesn't the dark luminous aqua balance the red so very eye-catchingly?  Stunning.

Wonderful, weird couture

From the Department of Cool Victorian Clothing, in conjunction with the Department of "Stuff You See a Lot Of in Steampunk Jewelry that Is Surprisingly Historically Accurate":

The internet was abuzz a couple of months back over the restoration of the dress from John Singer Sargent's Lady Macbeth:


Courtesy JSSGallery.org.

If you missed it, it's well worth a look: here are Virtual Victorian's and the Daily Mail's articles on the dress.

The interesting elements? A.) The dress was famously worn by the gorgeous redhead actress Ellen Terry, who I have always found M to rather resemble, in 1888, and B.) it's adorned with hundreds and hundreds of actual beetle wings. You know, like these and these.

The description of the repair process in the first article linked is also quite technically interesting for those who do such delicate work.

Treasury Wednesday: Sugar and spice? Also, my "rules" for making these

When I make a treasury, I select items with this sort of "decision tree." This isn't anything I've codified, mind you, these are just the priorities that have evolved naturally as I became dedicated to the idea of letting these be my community presence.

First of all, I won't feature anything that I strongly suspect to be a reseller item. I'm certain that some slip through my grasp, but I'm pretty careful. Also, blatantly incorrect tagging and glaring spelling errors drop things very low down the list of things I want to feature.

After those basics, my first priority is photo quality. I try to emphasize both good photography and well-made items -- decoupaged clothespins go in way after hand-drawn sketches. Good crisp lighting, however, trumps it; if the clothespins were photographed well and the sketch poorly, in they go and out goes the sketch.

I select to match both a color family and a theme, but color comes first.

If I have the option of a well-known, oft-featured shop and a newer one, all other factors being equal, I go with the newer one. I try to overemphasize shops with fewer than 100 instances of feedback.

Last and least important is avoiding competing with myself or M. I won't feature fairy doors or plush squid, and I do attempt to limit jewelry, though mostly that's because I try to have a wide range of item types.

This treasury is a great example because I managed to get a good number of newer shops, to emphasize some really excellent photography, and to make every single item fit a theme/story. It's a little naughty, which I always expect people to remark on more than they do -- you'll notice some bondage-themed items, never mind the corsetry -- but has an appealingly innocent look covering the wickedness, with a light blue and dark blood red combination that's unconventional enough to intrigue but could easily be a standard slightly-vintage Fourth of July scheme.

'One Way or the Other' by balletllama

Light blue and bright red in a variety of beautiful vintage-inspired designs. And once you see the story, just a bit scandalous.

Giclee illustration... choumie7 $15.00	SALE SALE 1970s lig... Threefeathersv... $20.00	Royal Blood - Chain... rabbitdance $70.00	pretty blue ribbon ... labellefairy $299.00
SALE. Group of thre... HouseOfCeramic... $54.00	dog waltz - fine ar... olivedear $30.00	Personalized Pet Bo... patspottery $26.00	Red Leather Rose Fl... Wycked $199.00
Hilarious, Mean Any... goatcards $3.50	Caught in a Net of... FruttiTuttiBea... $33.00	Red satin cupped lo... MorganaFemmeCo... $995.00	Classic Cameo Heart... lovesoapapilla $8.00
Untitled 12x8 Fine ... alicelily $35.00	Burlesque Gloves wi... DelilahBurlesq... $25.00	Baby blue linen cus... copperpod $30.00	Hand painted Doggie... jakeybb $399.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Multiculturalism in Victorian Accessories

Victorian clothing was slightly more resistant to extremes than we are sometimes led to believe.  Then as now, Paris was the center of the fashion world, where extremes of couture included (during Jane Austen's era) piercing the nipples and wearing sheer, dampened bodices so the piercings were visible through the clothing -- and the Parisian fashion plates we think of as our primary sources for Victorian clothing were to the dress of, say, wealthy English and German women in the 19th century as high-fashion magazines are to day-to-day celebrity attire today.
However, while dresses might stay plainer and more conservative than fashion plates show, worldly socialites wished to bedeck themselves in all the luxuries of Empire; colonial capitalists wanted to adorn their daughters in the spoils of their trade.  This meant both other parts of Europe, plus "the Orient" (Africa and the East). Yet, this article discusses, the Eastern woman was stereotyped to be the antithesis of everything a Victorian woman ought to be.  So how to combine that "exotic" allure with good, stolid Western virtue?

Accessories and trimmings.


Victorian outerwear mantles from the 1850s and 1870s, North African inspired, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose online exhibit of Orientalist clothing is here and as droolworthy as it is educational.

Hence, we get turbans worn for evening in the 30s, patterned Chinese and Japanese silks and velvet brocades in at-home and bedroom wear throughout three centuries (the wallpaper in the Ribbon and Ladies' Bedrooms at Woodburn is another great example), and mosaic jewelry, Etruscan Revival jewelry like the demi-parure below, and (I kid you not) chandelier earrings.


Image courtesy of Jewels at South Kensington.

Unbeknownst to most, cameos are actually an expression of, not Orientalism but definitely multiculturalism.  They're an old art form; there's a tale of Alexander the Great presenting his lover Bagoas with a cameo portrait in chalcedony.  The best place in the world to get cameos was (and is) Pompeii, where there was a school of cameo-making and where students sold their work to pay their tuition. Lava cameos, made from the remaining lava rock from the Mt. Vesuvius explosion, were most popular. Lava cameos were a frequent gift to sweethearts when a young gentleman just out of school finished his Grand Tour. Owning one meant that you or someone you knew had either been to Rome or paid an exorbitant amount for an import.

For more on multicultural Victorian accessories: Have a look at the references to African imported silks and the turban Algerienne (remember Algeria was a violently oppressed French colony at the time) in these 1844 fashion forecasts, and later, this discussion of Poiret's exoticized Edwardian hats and slippers.  And Beyond Victoriana has a wonderful analysis of what incorporating Orientalism (or the delightful neologism "Victorientalism") in steampunk actually means; I don't entirely agree with the discussion, because I frankly think the alternative to Victorientalism is whitewashing, but it is intelligent and anyone interested in Orientalism should give it a read.

This is a thing.

Today, I finished my makeup (I wear makeup now; I deserve praise for this, even though it's only powder/blusher), put my eyes back on, looked in the mirror, and said, "Oh, God, I'm dressed like an Etsy seller today."

Not sure why this occurs.  Dark jeans, black sweater, brightly colored necklace, thrift-store Mary Janes, and my hair styled in its usual manner (i.e., run a brush through it, drag in a stretchy headband, pretend the Hermione-esque waviness and body were deliberate).  Admittedly, the headband today is a cheap mass-produced one that I bought for four dollars at Ross, because ethical all-handmade consumption is not actually all that affordable, but people ask me all the time if I made it.  So there's that. 

And yet somehow, all it needs to be the perfect "artsy-artist commie weirdo look," as I described it to M, is a beret.  I do have a beret.  It's wool and from the 50s and slightly mothnibbled on one side, and it fits my big head, and I love it, and I am still slightly ashamed because my grandfather picked it up at a yard sale about six or seven years ago, and I plucked it off his head and stole it from him.

Is an interest at costuming prerequisite for this?: I always feel most confident when dressed to a theme.  I rarely think of a theme when I am actually dressing.  But if I glance in the mirror and go "Dude -- I just walked out of a Degas painting," or "Wow -- poor bohemian at a job interview much?", I feel better about my clothing choices.  This is part of the reason steampunk appeals to me so much; it gives me a clear self-presentation that doesn't preclude any of the clothes I love, like "gypsy" skirts (yes, I know that's racist) or shirtwaists or military jackets or hell, even blue jeans.

I was going to wear my new fedora, a gorgeous creation in heather-grey tone-on-tone polka dots with trim and feathers, but M said "Artsy hipster is artsy!" so I took it off.  Maybe Monday.


Available here.

Mixed media materials

A couple of fun things I picked up last month at Two Gather Beads, our awesome local place:

The long spirally ovals are hand-painted leather rolls from Peru. The dark red and purple one will be joining some vintage buttons, a textured copper chain, and those hemp-wrapped rings behind it to become a big crazy mixed-media bracelet. The light green one -- I'm not quite sure. It kinda wants to be on one side of a multistrand necklace with the beaded strands all pulled through it.  I'm not sure I have the patience for this, though.  At any rate, the dark red-brown stripe look surprisingly good with leftover Swarovski Bordeaux crystal pearls. 

At the back: Navy Czech glass with this interesting AB effect that appears to have been applied through mesh.  It could go elegant or very industrial.  It will probably end up being part of something for M's next steampunk dress, one of the ones for Octavia: a pale blue velvety bustle gown with a darker blue polonaise, 1870s, with optional leather work apron.  In that capacity it will be joining another awesome find: mixed goldstone, which I found at the Artist's Market and Bead Store in the French Quarter.  The store, with its great selection and awesome proprietor, highly and thoroughly recommended; and some of the things I found there (including the mixed goldstone, which has exquisite desert streaks of dark gold and midnight blue with that stunning goldstone sparkle) I've never seen anywhere else before or since.

Odd lighting in that photo, no?  It was getting late and I ended up using the flash, which one really ought not; it oversaturates the colors and gives a slight film-grain effect.  On anything shiny, you get a line of bright white -- and just as you can lighten a dark photo but not darken a bright one, there's no making flash-flare on beads go away.  Ever.  You can see it on the leather even though it's satin at best.  And the leaves lying around were pinched off my flowering kale when they went crispy.  What would I do without fallen plant bits to stage photos?  Answer: not stage them.  But staging is such fun, even when it's a just a look-what-I-got photo.