Bollywood Does Victorian- a Costumed Walkabout

Our next costumed walkabout theme at the Del Mar Antique Show on Nov 17 is Bollywood. I didn’t have a clue what that was and we were left to do our own interpretation of it. I knew I didn’t want to wear Indian dress mostly because I didn’t want to make or buy anything that I most likely will never use again. But it took a few weeks of wracking my brain of what to do. I bounced a few ideas off Cindy, who is more familiar with this than I am. I decided to wear one of my historical gowns and do *something* with it. After narrowing my choices down to these two bustle gowns, I decided on the 1870s purple polonaise, since it’s one of my favorites.

My first thought was the British Raj, and how the Victorians would have been dressing then. The timeline was 1858-1947.  Then I did a search for Bollywood and mainly came up with images of their movie stars, but also with models in traditional clothing and jewelry. 

Then an idea hit me. What would happen if Bollywood did a Victorian movie but with their traditional look & jewelry, kind of like PBS did Victorian’s back in the ‘60s and the actors were wearing modern hairstyles? So my theme became “Bollywood Does Victorian”.

With only a week and a half left until the event I had no time to buy any jewelry off ebay, even though the stuff was gorgeous and VERY cheap. There was no way any of it would get to me in time, especially the ones being shipped from overseas. I checked for stores around San Diego and didn’t come up with much to purchase locally. This morning while again brainstorming with Cindy, she offered up a necklace of her’s, and we’re waiting on her sis-in-law to possibly borrow a few pieces from her.  So my next search will be for bangles and bracelets, and after finding some photos of what to look for, I’m heading out to thrift shops and Target to see what I can dig up. This ought to be fun. I’ll be looking for something like these.

Before I left the house I dug through my jewelry box and found a couple I can use. I thought I had a wide gold cuff but it’s gone into the black hole.

I checked our local Goodwill and two drugstores (since they used to carry costume jewelry) with no luck. Next was Target and I found my first bunch but only one color selection at my store, hot pink, and multiple gold bangles, and a pair of earrings that reminded me of the gypsy style I wore in high school. 

I found one more bracelet, a really pretty one in green, at Kohl’s in the clearance section. There were quite a few gorgeous ones in the sale area but nothing under $11, and I was trying to keep this cheap. So with the green one, my cost came to $24.

 Combined together with mine, they're quite pretty.

Plans are now to hook up with Cindy and see what kind of necklace she can come up with for me. Now my hunt is on for a veil to go over my head. I’m leaning towards red to go with my purple gown but I’m going to keep an open mind since this will be very colorful. Trying to think what other crazy thing I can do with this.