White Gown and Corset with Peach Embroidered Inset from Taylor Swift’s Love Story

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Now I don’t really listen to country music, possibly because I fear being disowned by my dad, who says if he starts to listen to it of his own volition, we will all know he’s gone senile. Still, when Janel wrote about a beautiful dress that she was helping a young friend reproduce, it was almost a foregone conclusion that it’d end up on my blog, even if it did come from a country music song. It’s called Love Story by Taylor Swift, and I think it’s a lovely music video even if I am getting teased by Brian about it.

Since she spends almost all her time in this dress standing behind a balcony, and because I’m watching the video on YouTube, I can’t really tell how the skirt looks; the corset should be about right, but the skirt is more of a guess. From this photo it seems to have some interesting construction going on, but that’s just about the only picture I can find with the full skirt. (The arial view in the video doesn’t count, but it does give away that there is a longer train on the real thing than on the paperdoll. Unfortunately, while her costume designers likely have access to yards and yards of fabric, a proper train would have run off the side of my paper. Paper Dolls 1, Real Life 1.) Should anyone else wish to reference it, I used these two pictures when drawing the corset.

I’m glad there’s no clear winner in the poll yet, it makes the Grand Halloween Showdown so much more fun…

Gold Satin 1814 Regency Gown with White Embroidery from Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Upon reflection I really think the previous white regency gown has to go to someone like Louisa Musgrove, so I just had to draw one that would suit Anne a little better because she totally got robbed. So here’s a gown that’s a shade more sober than the white one, eminently suitable for playing the piano in while everyone else dances. The embroidery and satin only go so far in soothing a sad heart, but I like to think they’re worth a little something.

Why yes, I do love my new pencil sharpener, however did you notice?

So the latest poll is open for a few days yet, but it has a very clear winner, while this poll just has a couple of days to go and the competition is fierce. Don’t forget to vote in it! Soon we will have the Halloween Costume Battle Royale, too.

1814 White Lace Trimmed Regency Gown with Sheer Overskirt and Pink Shawl from Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Persuasion was one of the audiobooks I listened to earlier this year (again, from Librivox); it’s set starting in 1814, but the time, rather than the book, influenced this dress. Since it’s white, it’s probably considered too young a color for the book’s heroine, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a pure white Regency gown and it sure was fun to draw. This one might as well be titled “Liana Has A New Pencil Sharpener,” really. My old one was probably around eight years old, no wonder it took about two minutes and lots of coaxing to get a point inferior to the ones my new sharpener produces in seconds. It shows, too. Look forwards to a lot of lace in whatever I do next.

I looked at so many sites when thinking about how this dress should be, I can’t list them all, but pemberley.com, the Regency Fashion Page and Jessamyn’s Regency Costume Companion are the ones I noted down for later, so if you have any interest in Regency fashion please take a look at them.

We’re reaching the end of the Halloween costume polls. You haven’t forgotten about them already, have you?

Blood-Stained Violet Embroidered White Victorian Night Dress from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla

Click for larger version bloody / clean; click for the list of dolls.

So the server held up all right, but I’m still reeling from the Metafilter aftershocks. Usually I get about 400 unique visitors every day, and I was really excited when that turned into 500, late October when everyone was searching for Halloween stuff — how long will it take me to top 2,824?

Even if nothing will ever be as good again, life must go on. I’ve been thinking about all the audiobooks I listened to this year and never did a paperdoll outfit for — just off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen that offered fertile paperdolling grounds. So I think now that the year is coming to a close, it’s a good time to stop regretting the outfits that never were and start making them happen!

This is from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic 1872 vampire novel Carmilla, which isn’t as well known as Dracula but heavily influenced it. I listened to the Librivox version read by Elizabeth Klett a couple months back. Even though it was published so long ago I feel rather like I’m spoiling it, but in any case it’s no surprise that the Carmilla of the title is the vampire, preying on the sheltered and innocent Laura as well as just about everyone else in the town. In one scene she is portrayed as standing at the foot of Laura’s bed, “in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, in one great stain of blood.” As you know, I aim for accuracy in all things. (Brian said he could hardly stand looking at it…)

Now undoubtedly there are those of you out there thinking not “Poor, poor Laura, so near succumbing to the vampire Carmilla!” but instead thinking “Poor, poor night dress, so beautifully made and so sadly stained with Carmilla’s dinner!” Don’t worry, I’ve learned from my experience with the Good Queen. Look, through the magic of paperdolling you can wake up with Laura and be quite sure that it was all a bad dream…

I still haven’t finished my Halloween poll series. I fear that the nightshade fairy has quite an advantage, though…

Halloween Costume Series Day 11: Gypsy Girl’s White Tunic with Purple Embroidery, Violet-Blue Paisley Sash, and Pink and Purple Belled Full Skirt

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Violeta claims she makes up all her fortunes like everyone else and it’s not her fault there’s so much bad luck in this wicked world, but all the same her family won’t let her talk in the future tense. She can never get past “I will” or “Tomorrow” before one of her sisters tackles her and claps a hand over her mouth, none too gently either. They resent her because as the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter of the legendary gypsy mystic Simza, she was supposed to inherit the family powers, and since they were all brought into the world to facilitate her arrival there should have been some payoff for them. Instead, they switch off days shadowing her, protecting their family, their friends, for all they know the world from this lightning rod of misery, their uncanny and dangerous sister. Violeta floated the idea once of billing herself as a sort of goddess of curses, and her mother would have thought it a terrific joke for another of her daughters, Zora perhaps, to make up theatrical fake curses and fleece all those who sought to bring harm on others. Violeta, however, seemed to be at the mercy of some demon that hijacked her tongue when she foretold the future, and her mother had better sense than to try to profit off of such a thing. Even the fortunes she told that sounded positive brought only wretchedness. (Would that she had never told Carmen about that darkly handsome rich man!)

Forbidden contact with the future and silenced by the tender ministrations of her sisters, she pours her energy into other things, trying her best to walk straight on a twisted road. She paints and repaints intricate and vivid patterns on her family’s wagons, she knows all the names and uses of everything that grows in the forests, and she makes up wild, violent dances, stamping the ground with the intensity of a curse.

New poll, and rather a silly one. I drew from my Halloween pile, but all my paperdolls are potential warriors here, so if you want Calamity Jane’s trusty shotgun I’m not going to stop you.

Princess Garnet’s White Gown from Final Fantasy IX

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Brian finished Final Fantasy IX recently, and since I’ve always loved the gown that Garnet a.k.a. Dagger wears at the beginning and end of the game, I just had to paperdoll it. For cutting this one out, it ought to work to cut the sleeve around the ends, and then both arm and sleeve go above the skirt. I am tempted to do a “Fancy Gowns of Final Fantasy Games” series…

Once again, Verithin pencils to the rescue with those vines. I love those things.

Don’t forget to vote for the mermaid tail for next Monday:

5th Century AD Upper-Class Celtic Woman In Saffron and Green Léinte and Green Brat (for St. Patrick’s Day)

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Wikipedia says that “uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he [St. Patrick] lived from 373 to 493″ and for the purpose of paperdolling, I can be uncritical. This is my guess at what an upper-class Celtic woman might have worn during the time of St. Patrick. She wears a sleeveless saffron-dyed, heavily embroidered léine, which is a linen tunic, over another light green sleeved léine. At this point, the sleeves, if there were any, were long and straight; the larger sleeves that you might see at a Renaissance fair come later. The green fabric she wears as a cloak is called a brat, and it’s made of wool and edged with gold. She pins the brat with a white bronze penannular brooch, and she wears a woven leather belt.

I cannot say that this is entirely historically accurate; I’ve read about clothes from that time and done my best to make it so, but I’m no expert. I read a lot of great resources about clothing from this time period:

Ceara ni Neill’s Early Period Online
Paul Du Bois’ Book of Kells Images
Clothing of the Ancient Celts
Echna’s Celtic Clothing Page
Crafty Celts

Also, if you’re looking at the dress and thinking “Well, how would someone actually cut that out? Or were hand amputations common in the 5th century?” my advice would be to cut a line between the edge of the sleeve and the cloak and slip her hand through it. This is, of course, if you have already followed my advice (given somewhere…) to cut Sylvia’s hand away from her hip, so that dresses like Margaret Hale’s gown work better.

Brian told me I should have done something for Saint Urho. Maybe next year.