COSTUME IDEAS FOR THE COMING YEAR

 Today, just a week past attending Costume College, my mind is planning my costumes for the coming year. I had already been putting together a Regency dress for a Bridgerton Ball, so I’ve been gathering ideas for it, especially after coming across a beautiful embroidered sheer net fabric on etsy for a great, one-time-wear dress, at a cheap price. Since I normally make more historical looking dresses, and this is more fantasy, finding a cheap fabric made it easier to let loose. I collected photos from the Bridgerton series as my inspiration, and am thinking maybe adding purple florals around the neckline. Then I did some shopping on AliExpress online, our favorite place for inexpensive bling, and found a purple amethyst color collet necklace and bracelet, for $6.95. I plan to make earrings from the bracelet.

This time of year, I’m all about planning for Fall and Halloween, and while looking around Pinterest for ideas, I suddenly I saw another dress that started my brain pinging off the walls for a fun costume to wear for Halloween and next year: a Disney Haunted Mansion maid’s dress that I could make into an 1870s version. Yes, you could buy that first one pictured, but where’s the fun in that?  Then while searching on etsy for a possible fabric for it, I saw a bunch of Disney Haunted Mansion fabrics. One was a black and green stripe with bats on it! Perfect! However, all the Disney fabrics I was seeing were going for $20 yd. Joann Fabrics also has some Disney Haunted Mansion fabrics but with general designs on it, not specifically the green & black stripes I wanted, and theirs are normally $12.99, on sale for $7.49. The one on etsy I really liked only had 4 yds left, and the polonaise takes 5 1/4 yds, but then I saw it was 58” wide, so 4 yds would work. I knew I couldn’t wait because this fabric was going fast and that’s all there was.  Yes, I did search elsewhere for it, with no luck. So WTH, I bought it.

I have a couple options for patterns to use, either Truly Victorian’s #410 polonaise, the Black Snail #0116, which I recently made a dress from, or better yet, McCall’s #8189 polonaise, which I like the neckline on. 

My dress style will be different, but it would still have the same look as the original worn by the employees at the Haunted Mansion. These are actual garments that employees wore that were auctioned off a few years ago. 

I decided I wanted to get this made in time for me to wear for Halloween because I’ve been enjoying dressing up for that each year. I’ve already been a ghost bride, a skeleton ghoul, and a witch a few times, using my historical costumes as a base. Now it was time to try something new.

This sent me on a further search (Pinterest can be your best friend, or etsy), looking for accessory ideas. I was first thinking of how I could use an 1870s hat/bonnet and add the white lace and a bat to it. But then I started seeing Haunted Mansion Mickey ears headbands, and thought that would be easy to make. I really think those little bat wings are cute, but I decided to buy that first one in my photos to save myself some time. It may arrive before my fabric does and it will give me the enthusiasm to get going on everything. 

And of course, I need a name badge like they do at the Mansion. And I’m thinking I might make up a bunch of just general tags and give out to any of my friends who decided to join me in a Haunted Mansion costume mini-group at Costume College in honor of the Haunted Mansion movie coming out. You can have a personalized one made for you on etsy for about $10, but I’ll probably just make a bunch that says Foolish Mortal.

                                                    Join me if you dare, Foolish Mortal!