Costume College 2017 – What I Wore!

If you wondered at all why it’s been so quiet around here the past month the answer is simple: Costume College!

This year was my very first time attending Costume College, the annual 3-4 day costume conference in California. And, whoo-boy, what an experience!! I had a fantastic time, met lots of awesome people, got all kinds of inspiration from both them and the classes I attended and have come home with my mind in a frenzy of possibilities for CoCo 2018 and the year in between!

But, for those of you who didn’t get to attend, you’re probably really just mostly interested in what everybody wore, right? There were so many good outfits, on a wide range of themes. However, to make things more digestible I thought I’d start with my own CoCo 2017 wardrobe.

I had 6 outfits/costumes in total. Three come from my costume closet and three were new makes.

Things kicked off properly on Thursday evening with the Pool Party. The overall theme for CoCo this year was to do with the 1960s so I paid my one homage to that at the pool party:

Of course this is the only picture of me in the dress that night that I’ve been able to find, courtesy of Angela of Burnley & Trowbridge.

I hope Taylor doesn’t mind me posting this photo with her gloriously awful vintage polyester crepe/knit (or something horrendous like that) dress, lol.

This was one of the new makes, from this really nice vintage cotton crepe (yes! that was a thing! it’s lovely, why don’t we have that today!?) from my stash using a 1960s vintage Vogue designer pattern:

On Friday during the day I re-wore my pale blue cutaway front anglaise:

I made a few very minor modifications: I stitched down the cutaway fronts close to the edges, which helps them lie more smoothly; I added channels and boning to the centre back of the bodice to keep that line smooth (but used reed in them, which snapped the first time I properly sat in a chair! So those need to be replaced with something sturdier); and I tried out working some of my own hair into my wig to try and get a little more of a natural look. My technique could definitely use improvement (I’m still such a hair newbie!) but I did quite like the effect, despite it exposing my shockingly high forehead!

That evening was the Friday social. Since I believe it’s also sometimes referred to as an ice cream social (I don’t recall there being any ice cream there, but there was cake!) I thought it would be a good time to wear my Raspberry Mint Sorbet bustle dress:

This also gave me the chance to test out a new Victorian wig I’d just styled and also worked my own hair into. I feel like this one was more successful/looked better than the hedgehog.

After being fully corseted on Friday I decided to ease up and go Regency during the day on Saturday with my DAR outfit:

And I found a twin!

For the gala on Saturday night I wore my most extensive new make: a natural form-era evening gown based on the painting “The Accomplice”

This will be getting its own blog post, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

For Sunday I wore another new make with part of my gala dress: a natural form polonaise ensemble:

I think this last one may actually be my most favourite, better even than my gala dress!

Next up will be a post of some of the fabulous costumes and creations I saw this year – I wasn’t the best at taking lots of photos but I’ll show you the best of what I got!