Crafty Manolo

I remember my senior prom. The only reason I got a new dress was because my mother saw one she knew I would adore in my size on such a ridiculously good sale that she bought it without even consulting me. Luckily, she knew my style really well. It was just the dress I would have picked left to my own devices.

In fact, the only reason I went to my senior prom was that my boyfriend at the time started talking about what he was going to wear, and, well, I figured that meant he wanted to go.

Other girls, though, put a lot more thought and effort into prom. Diane McNease certainly did!

See the bodice of her prom dress? She constructed the entire thing out of Starburst wrappers. The skirt is a far more conventional black satin over layers of tulle.

McNease got inspired when she saw a friend folding Starburst wrappers to make bracelets. Somehow this lead to a dare, which McNease happily took:

“Someone said I couldn’t do it. That’s the last thing you should say to me.”

After a year and a half of collecting wrappers (she started out eating all the candy herself, but quickly found that was too much… and had no difficulty recruiting volunteer candy eaters), and another five months folding and then hand sewing strips of wrappers. Her father helped her with the construction of the bodice and her friend Bria Johnson made the skirt to go with it.

Partway through the process, McNease discovered she wouldn’t be the first teen to don a Starburst wrapper prom dress when Tara Frey’s mother, Kerrin, announced the dress she had spent six years making for her daughter’s prom.

McNease says she was already underway with her plans when Frey’s dress hit the headlines:

“But I really admire her dress. Especially the shoes. They are fantastic.”

Even more than the fun dress, I like this girl’s creativity, determination, and generous attitude.

Diane McNease, I offer you a twenty-one Starburst salute!

Reader Annie pointed me in the direction of this deeply cool gallery of art shoes. Unfortunately there isn’t any indication I can find of who made them, or even if they’re all by the same artist.

All the same, do go check them out. The inspirations range from children’s toys to birds to Madonna in the eighties. The two things they all have in common? They are high-heeled ladies’ shoes, and they freaking rock!

Thanks, Annie, for pointing me in their direction.

ETA: Sarah J informs me the artist is Kobi Levi and more of his work can be found on his blog here. Thanks, Sarah J!

Rooney Mara wore one in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Lucy Lawless was fitted for one for Spartacus, but didn’t wear it in the end.

Heidi Klum wore a huge, terrifying one in Blow Dry.

Kate Winslet refused to wear one in The Reader.

Fifteenth century prostitutes wore them.

What potentially not safe for work fashion item am I talking about?

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If you are at all interested in historical costuming, then you know the right shape of corset makes the difference between the correct line and… well, all those costumes that just aren’t ever going to look quite right.

Unfortunately, modern shaping garments just won’t give you the look you need, whether it’s renaissance or roaring twenties. Antique corsets – even if I could in good conscience promote the wearing of actual historical clothing – are often fragile, and not fitted to a more modern body. Custom corsets can cost a packet and may or may not offer  you precisely what you need.

But what if you could make your own?

Ah, but now you can! In fact, I can show you where to go to learn how to draft your own pattern for a corset.

Your Wardrobe Unlock’d offers up a freebie set of instructions for drafting your own pattern for your own set of 1870′s stays… and from there you can simply adjust the proportions for a corset from virtually any era. The instructions can be downloaded in pdf format in either a color coded version or in printer-friendly black and white.

Even if you don’t want to make your own corset, I highly recommend a wander through the site. Even if the closest you’ve come to making an historic costume is to drool over an evening gown on Downton Abbey, you’ll find something of interest here. Alas! many of the best bits are only available to those who subscribe, but there are a lot of pretty pictures you can see before you need to pay. And as I said, the corset drafting instructions are free as the proverbial bird.

I love Halloween. I love a chance to dress up and I love candy and I love giving stuff to kids. Put all three together, and bingo! it’s Halloween.

But sometimes I don’t get around to dressing up. It’s sad, but true. Heidi Klum always dresses up, but she’s got a budget and stylists, and (apparently) a dentist who made custom-fitted vampire fangs for her. Now that’s dedication to Halloween!

Still, I usually do dress up and I take a certain pride in being able to rummage randomly in my closet and create a visual pun on the spot (or with a quick trip to the dollar store for a prop or two).

I have two favorite last-minute costumes I came up with. For one, I used pale makeup to make myself look ashen, wore a flowing long dress and tied a very long scarf around my throat to go as the ghost of Isadora Duncan. Sick, but those in the know got a blast out of it.

The other was inspired by a rubber pig snout someone gave me. I wore a pair of slacks, a dress shirt, and a man’s vest all with play money coming out of the pockets, and put on the pig snout. What was I? A capitalist pig, of course! The people who bought books from me that day (I was working in a really great book store at the time) got some good giggles out of that one.

So what about you? What’s the best Halloween costume you’ve ever done? Was it for you? Your kid? A friend? Did people get it at first glance? Or were they as mystified as the time I went out as one of the chorus of professional bridesmaids from Ruddigore? As it turns out, when I was eleven there wasn’t a single Gilbert and Sullivan junkie in our entire neighborhood who didn’t live in the same house as I did! Who’da thunk it?

I vividly remember Christmas day when I was nine. My great aunt gave me a fabulous salmon pink evening gown from the fifties with acres of rainbow tulle petticoats attached. Once I got it on, I never wanted to take it off again.

Sometimes a girl just needs a tutu more than she can possibly say.

I got that same giddy feeling of delight when I looked at the works of Etsy artist SewLovedBoutique. Just look at this adorable fairy princess costume! The wings aren’t actually included, but chances are the small child in your life will adore it as much as I do, wings or no. Oh, and it’s on sale! Regularly priced at $60.00, it’s marked down to $54.00 right now.

Contact the artist to learn about a custom tutu for your favorite baby, toddler, or child for this Halloween… but you’d better hurry. The witching hour is almost here!

That poor pooch!

Okay, I’m going to come right out and say this: I really, really dislike the practice of dressing up pets. I find it undignified. That’s my personal opinion, and I’m sticking by it. Your mileage may vary, and we won’t have a problem about that as long as you aren’t coming over to dress my cat up… not that you’d find him if you tried that. He’d be hiding and I would aid him in any way I could.

But even if you’re into dressing up the critturs in your life, would you really inflict this ‘Yoda’ costume on your pup? I wouldn’t. In fact, the expression on this poor, forlorn canine really sums up my feelings on the subject.

On the other hand, I have to admit I could see a use for the crocheted light saber rattles. Same artist, much cooler result. In fact, I have some terribly pro-creative friends who are huge Star Wars nerds, too. If they present the world with another tiny one, I know what to give as a baby present!

This collar, cuff, and chemisette set dates from 1895, but you can make it according to the original instructions today.

In fact, if you want to create an historically accurate outfit from corset to cloak, bonnet to boots, then you should head over to Ageless Patterns right now.

After decades of professional costume work, the creator of Ageless Patterns found herself frustrated with the lack of historical patterns to work from, particularly for men, and began collecting all she could. Now she reproduces the patterns on an engineering copier for accuracy, adds a seam allowance, but otherwise leaves the original as it is, instructions and all.

That means these are not for beginners, but if you have some experience you can figure out the arcane language and sometimes less than explicit directions.

Whether you’re looking for a camp dress for Civil War re-enactment, an Edwardian wedding gown, a fabulous frivolous hat, or a corset only your significant other will see just for fun, this is a great place to go. You can even find patterns for purses, pillows, slippers, and trims.

Heck, if you’ve ever dreamed of crocheting up a pair of underdrawers for a little boy, Ageless Patterns has you covered there, too!

Ageless Patterns also carries several other select lines of historical/ethnic patterns, including: Past Patterns, Folkwear, Patterns of History, Decades of Style, and Buckaroo Bobbins.

So if you have an historical costume in mind, whether for a woman, man, boy, or girl… or even a doll, Ageless Patterns is a great place to start – and quite possibly end – your search.

No, that’s not a costume from an avant garde production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s the handiwork of environmental artist Nicole Dextras. The title is Camellia Countess. It’s composed of: camellia flowers, lilac flowers, yucca leaves, laurel leaves, willow branches, and thorns. The thorns are how the piece is held together. No thread here!

Dextras makes her wearable art from the plants she finds in her own garden, as well as donations from others. She then photographs the pieces, some on models, some not, and then leaves them in the great outdoors to return to the soil.

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The painting in the picture above is by Van Dyck. The costumes in the foreground are by Isabelle de Borchgrave. She has done a meticulous recreation of the outfits in the painting… and she’s done them out of paper.

de Borchgrave is a painter by training, but her passion is for textiles. Working with a group of talented costume historians and fashion designers, she has made a line of paper costumes based on famous paintings and designer masterpieces ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. And if you have the good fortune to be in the San Francisco area, you can go see them at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in her show Pulp Fashion.

Tickets are $15.00 for adults, $12.00 for seniors (65+), $11.00 for youths 6 – 17 and college students with ID, and free for kids under 6.

But hurry! The show will be over on June 5!