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The Párisi Udvar in Budapest, Hungary. Arcade/department store/ galleria built 1907-1913, in a mix of styles- venetian gothic, orientalism, jugendstil, renaissance.

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Lok’Tar Ogar

(As usual, all the names have been changed to protect people’s privacy.  LONG POST so press “J” to skip or start scrolling because I can’t make cuts work for Moblie, sorry.)

Back in 2004 I went to a cousin’s wedding and my mom got into Fandom.

Ruth, my Mom’s-college-roommate’s-daughter was getting married to a man of mixed reputability in what had been for several months had been the primary sitcom of the family- mushroom vs. champagne draperies, the bride wanted a small ceremony and the mother of the groom wanted to invite every business contact she had, and then there was the problem of the Rabbis- Ruth’s rabbi had mostly retired but had promised to marry her in her youth, David’s had promised the same and the current Rabbi of Ruth’s synagogue wanted in too, so they agreed to be married by all three Rabbis.  Furthermore, any Jewish wedding requires a Chuppah- a canopy under which the ceremony takes place.  Mom agreed to make one for Ruth and David’s wedding, (MUSHROOM-colored of course, not champagne) and escort it there personally as we were attending the ceremonies.

Alas, the wedding was in Columbus, a terrible place. 

Southeast Ohio is generally a rather nice place- on the far northern end of the appalachia it has lovely rolling hills of deep hardwood forests, a spectacular zoo and many other things a scientifically inclined teenager might enjoy but I was not going to those, I was going to a Wedding, where I had been guilted into being a flower girl on account of being the youngest available cousin, along with my sister.  I spent most of the drive from Colorado in a state of spectacular teenage misery, which was almost entirely obliterated when we got to the hotel.

The guests of the Hotel consisted thusly:

My family (4)

A small herd of fancy-suited businessmen there for some obscure finance meeting (30ish)

A jolly and boisterous horde of Gamers, Cosplayers, Geeks and Freaks present for the World Of Warcraft convention immediately across the street (several hundred)

I didn’t actually know a damn thing about WoW, other than it was something my geekier friends in middle school played, and that it had elves with ridiculous eyebrows, but I know how to make friends with the kind of people who wear nothing but bodypaint and prosthetic ears in public and started talking to the gang of Blood Elves at the breakfast bar while the businessmen huddled together at their table like a group of musk oxen forming up against a pack of wolves.

Eventually mom wandered over and joined in the conversation- after years of making Halloween costumes, stage props, miscellaneous fabric constructions like the Chuppah and so forth, she’d gained an extensive knowledge of what fiber can be made to do, but wanted to know what marvelous things these people were doing with plastics.  She hit it off particularly well with the Troll over his teeth, and they decided to confide in her.

“Hey, here’s a fun thing to do-” Said the blood elf, before trotting over to the edge of the mezzanine overlooking the lobby.  

“LOK’TAR OGAR!”  she bellowed as loudly as her tiny, corseted frame could manage. “FOR THE HORDE!!!” Roared back several dozen Warcrafters, shaking their con-safe weaponry and causing several of the businessmen to duck for cover.

“Yeah, if you need anything, just yell that.”  she nodded, before we parted ways.

Later that night, Mom slipped in the shower and sprained her ankle, which resulted in a moderately panicked but ultimately boring visit to a clinic to get it X-ray’d and acquire a wheelchair.  The next morning, however, we had to proceed to the wedding, and discovered that the elevator was out of service.

A Chuppah, if you’re not familiar with one, is roughly the same dimensions and weight as those pop-up tents they use at gentrified outdoor craft fairs, or about 9 feet long and close to 60lbs when folded up.  This one was closer to 100 once all the memorial images and sentimental fabrics and special tent poles had been added on.    Mom was stuck in the wheelchair, Dad was in a state of near panic at Mom being injured and also having to be somewhere On Time, and my sister and I were liquefying in the summer heat and the bride-mandated mushroom-colored seven goddamn layers of itchy-ass tulle flower girl dresses, barely able to lift the chuppah between us.

In short stairs were not happening and three quarters of us were about to riot but Mom is definitely the smart person in the family because she remembered-

“LOK’TAR OGAR!!”

“FOR THE HORDE!!”

“I NEED SOME HELP!”

Instantly the cosplayers from the night before were there, along with a dozen more.  Two beefy trolls carried Mom down the stairs and clean out to the parking garage, someone else got the chuppah, and the Blood elf managed to get concierge to bring our car around to the curb with our destination already programmed into the (VERY PRIMITIVE) gps.  I thought my dad was going to cry with relief.

“So [Gallus].”  Mom asked me on the way to the wedding.  “People who like videogames. Do they all have Magic Words?”

“Yeah most of them have some kind of phrase like ‘may the force be with you’ or ‘live long and prosper’.  Why?”

She just nodded, storing that fact away for later.

The wedding turned out to be an event in and of itself- The mother of the bride fainted when they kissed, the rabbis nearly got into a fistfight, the mother of the groom fell off the chair and needed stitches, uncle Larry tore his pants on the dance floor then elected to remove them and keep dancing- and I managed to forget entirely about Mom’s question.

*

Last year, we were doing theater set-in at the same time the local theater and culture complex was hosting the small city convention.  It was July, hotter than satan’s own asshole, and the stage pieces were too large for both of our 5’2-and-under asses to move.

I came back out from wresting a Magic tree into the complex to find mom squinting calculatingly at a group of Marvel cosplayers.

“What are their Magic Words?”

“Huh?”

“The words you say when you want to summon them- ‘Use the Force’ or something?”

I blinked a few times, as my heat stroke-addled brain translated that.  “…Avengers Assemble?”

“HEY AVENGERS!” Hollered Mom. “ASSEMBLE!!”

INSTANTLY, an Iron Man and three Captains America sprinted over.

“What can we do Ma’am?” asked one of the captains, sticking rigorously to character.

“We need help moving these set pieces in and you have muscles.”  she explained, and without question everyone pitched in to move a magical forest, the front half of a castle and a dragon’s cave into the Children’s Theater backstage.  The Iron Man politely answered questions about painting metallics on Cardboard for her and all three Captains America lines up and saluted her upon emptying the truck.

“You’re dangerous.” I teased her as they returned to Con.

“Tell me more Magic Words- I need that tall one in purple to help with the lights.”  she said, gesturing to a Waluigi that was about to become familiar with the Children’s Theater Lighting System.

_________________________________

(If you enjoyed this story, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon where you can pre-order my upcoming Family Lore illustrated Anthology.  Thank you.)

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This project is finally finished! I started this dress back in July '24, thinking that I had plenty of time to finish it before my trip to Dickens on the Strand in December. Of course, I grossly underestimated my ability to get distracted, so I was, as is tradition, finishing this dress up in the hotel room the first night of the event. But hey, at least it was finished!

Things started with the skirt, which was based off several designs I kept seeing in 1850s fashion plates that have tiered skirts with ruffles on them. I had always slated that amazing plaid fabric for something mid-Victorian, and the ruffles seemed like a good way to accent such a busy fabric, and to help keep fabric usage down, as I only had 9 yards of the plaid.

The ruffles were attached to a plain black panel, which was then attached to a plaid panel, which was gathered onto the skirt base, which was also made of plain black taffeta.

I hadn't decided on a bodice design when I first started, and when it came time to make it I was definitely in a time crunch, so it's pretty much a straight make of Truly Victorian's TV440. The front closes with hooks and thread bars, but I ended up making it slightly too small, which led to gapping over the bust. I didn't have time to fully address this before the event, so I made a fichu in black taffeta that I could wear to cover it.

To make the fishu, I traced the back bodice pattern onto the fabric, then just drew in the tails in chalk. I mocked it up in cotton first, and then cut it out in taffeta. If I were to do it again, I would remember to put the taffeta on the bias so it would stretch over my bust correctly. The taffeta was also super slippery on top of the bodice, which was also taffeta, so even though I intended to wear it like a sontag, as seen above, I ended up wearing it with the tails down in front.

The undersleeves were finished in the hotel room just before my first event. You can't really see them in any of the pictures, but they definitely helped make the outfit feel complete, and I didn't have my naked forearms flapping around for all the world to see!

There's a much more in-depth writeup on my main costuming blog, including a lot of skirt math!

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Victorian painting of a 17th century scene, with excellent seasonal vibes

Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema (English, 1852-1909)

At the Doorway

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Le Bon Ton, Journal de modes. September 1854, v. 37, plate 7. Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library

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Stripes, my beloved, I see you there.

Revue de la Mode, Gazette de la Famille, dimanche 26 septembre 1886, 15e Année, No. 769

Print maker: A. Chaillot; Printer: P. Faivre; Paris

Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands

Keep reading

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Wake up babe a new open access review about Ice Age fashion just dropped.

Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress (Science Advances 28 June 2024)

This article uses the spread of bone awls and needles to trace the evolution of clothing from simple, minimally protective coverings to finely tailored, insulating garments across the geography of the Last Glacial Maximum. Not surprisingly, needle use is associated with cold climates and the need for warm, fitted clothing. But the wide variation in needle size, including very small ones for fine, delicate work, along with frequent discovery of shell and bone beads showing use wear consistent with rubbing against clothing, shows the evolution of clothing into dress. Bodily adornment transitioned to clothing to mark identity and status.

Fig. 4. Puncture marks consistent with leather hole punching on a bone fragment at Canyars, Catalonia, dated to 39,600 cal B.P. Scale bars, 1 cm. Photos: L. Doyon, F. d’Errico.

Fig. 5. Morphological variation in the size and shape of Late Pleistocene eyed needles. Scale bar, 1 cm. Modified from d’Errico et al.

Fig. 2. Nassarius kraussianu shell beads from Blombos Cave Still Bay layers, southern Africa, dated to approximately 73,000 to 70,000 years ago. Arrows indicate use-wear facets. Photos: F. d’Errico [modified after d’Errico et al.]

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For those interested in Victorian menswear, be sure to check out The Gazette of Fashion and Cutting Room Companion. It was a 19th century periodical that is geared toward tailors and is focused almost exclusively on menswear. Every volume is stuffed full of patterns, and the articles talk about trends in cut, style, and color each season. It's a fantastic resource and almost no one knows about it.

I've included a link to one of them (1870), but there are multiple volumes available for free on Google Books.

Really says something about the dire state of offerings for men interested in sewing their own clothes that even searching things like "interesting men's clothing patterns" brings up articles with links to four or five whole websites that primarily offer admittedly nice but practically identical patterns for making button-ups and work pants and maybe a varsity/bomber jacket if you're lucky.

(Branching out into historical costuming for everyday wear is like your one shot at variation, and even then, the ratio of men's to women's patterns on every website is frustrating to say the least.)

Patternmakers as a trans man I am begging you. Give me a little more to work with here.

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A New Crinoline and 1850s Petticoats

Finally getting around to posting about my new 1850s undies! I finished them last winter, but Life happened, so here I am, a year and a half later.

Anyway, I finished a new crinoline and basic cotton petticoat first. The crinoline was made by first making the lower section out of cotton muslin, and attaching twill tape at even intervals. I then made each bone individually, the casing made from twill tape, then the boning threaded through, and then the bone stitched closed at the needed circumference. I played around with the size of each bone before I stitched it to the tapes to get the overall shape that I wanted.

To go over it, I made my standard cotton petticoat with a single flounce.

Then I actually got around to reading period descriptions and suggestions for petticoats in fashion magazines of the time, and found that they frequently recommended petticoats made of grosgrain fabric, with three flounces from the knee to the hem. So, I searched the internet and finally found some grosgrain fabric, which I had to order from Greece. (Spoiler alert - grosgrain and faille are pretty much indistinguishable, which I wish I'd known before because faille is way easier to find.)

Anyway, the construction of the petticoat was not difficult, but the grosgrain fabric was a nightmare. It frayed at the slightest touch, exploding into a thousand tiny shards. My serger was garbage and not working, so I used a side cutter presser foot instead, which sort of acts as a serger. It definitely helped, but by the time I discovered said presser foot, I was already so over this project that I threw it in the naughty corner for months because I couldn't stand to work on it anymore. I finally dug it out a few months later and finished it up.

I have to say, it does give an enormous amount of floof, but I would never, ever recommend making one to anyone else. It was a nightmare from start to finish.

There's a more detailed writeup with more of my petticoat research and in-progress photos on my main blog, so please do check it out!

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Day Dress

c.1855

England

This type of widely protruding skirt that appeared around the middle of the 19th century came to be known later under the name of the "crinoline style." As can be seen with this dress, large design motifs proved immensely effective on these voluminous skirts. The border pattern here is wood-block printed and repeats every 20.6 cm. Compared to small-scale designs, large patterns require a solid technique to avoid misalignment of the print colors. Considering that this mixed fabric of silk and wool is a material hard to print on, this dress with its bright and cheerful colors is a particularly fine example on how much cloth printing techniques had evolved.

The Kyoto Costume Institute

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Hello, yes, it's me with three 1850s transformation gowns, a wrapper, and all the accessories for them, all needed just five months from now.

“How’s your WIP going?”

"Have you made any progress?”

“How close are you to being done?”

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The stripes! Why are stripes always *so* good? ♥

Le Follet, 1855, No. 1971 : Chapeaux Mme Naudé (…), anonymous, after Anaïs Colin-Toudouze, 1855 (x)

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Hello, Stripes, you have my attention. ♥

La Mode: revue du monde élégant. Troisième année. Juillet. 1831. Paris. Pl. 166. Robes de Mousseline blanche et mousseline à raies brochées, façon de Melle Palmire. Coiffures de M. Hypolite — Bijoux de Chauffert, Palais royal. Bibliothèque nationale de France

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I never did update when this got finished last summer, did I?

Happy with how it turned out, even if it does take some serious hairpin architecture to construct a bun that'll hold the hat steady - it's a little heavier (and a lot more ready to blow around in the wind) than anticipated.

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This hits so many of my niche interests, it's perfect. ♥

Bookbinding: A Stitch in Time

My mom has been hoping to get her hands on a hard copy of A Stitch in Time, which, as I'm sure most of you are aware, tends to be pricey if you can find it. (It's currently listed for ~$115 on eBay, and more expensive elsewhere.)

So, I decided to put my bookbinding skills to use and make her one for her birthday.

Notes on the design and construction:

The cover design was inspired by (or rather adapted from via considerable photoshopping) this book cover from 1901 that happened to cross my dashboard in a post with a bunch of other cool old book covers:

I created the Cardassian building silhouettes based on a screencap, and the DS9 silhouette is borrowed from the Niners logo. The orchid on the back cover emerging from the Obsidian Order logo is one I found in Cricut Design Space.

(Feel free to use these in your own projects, if you like.)

The bookcloth is by BOOKCRAFTSUPPLYCO on Etsy (dark green). The cover designs are HTV, Cricut Everyday Iron-On (black), Cricut Foil Iron-On (gold), and Vinyl Frog Metallic Foil (holographic silver). The Cardassian Union logos on the end pages were done using Cricut's foil transfer system (gold). The fonts on the cover are DS9 Title and DS9 Credits from st-minutiae.com.

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by threadhandedjill