Halloween Costume Series Day 8: Cleopatra White Linen Egyptian Dress with Blue Lotus Pattern, with Jeweled Collar and Red Sash

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I kind of broke my “no research all month” rule for this one, but it is not hard for me to find an excuse to look at ancient Egyptian clothes. This one is vaguely accurate, although I think the lotus pattern may be over the top, there’s no melting perfume cone and the clothes should be sheer anyways, for full royal style. That’s even further than today’s ’sexy Cleopatra’ revelers want to go… I used to want to be an Egyptologist, and I’ve even got a book or two on learning hieroglyphs in the other room. Then I discovered Japanese and kanji. No kidding.

If you’ve already taken my poll and answered “obscure costumes,” can you leave a comment and tell me what kinds of costumes you’re talking about? I’m very curious now, since that category’s done so well. I expected that sexy costumes would be low on the list for this crowd, but I wasn’t expecting that no one would choose ‘pop culture’ for a costume. What, no Jedis in this group? No Jokers? I thought everyone wanted to be the Joker this year…

Mermaid Monday #2: Copper-Tailed Mermaid with White and Blue Silk Top

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This copper-tailed mermaid is sister to the golden-tailed mermaid we saw a few weeks back, and I suppose there must be a sister with a silver tail in the mix somewhere, because I can’t draw silver either and it’s high time I learned. Anyways, she is a little more fond of decoration than her sister, wearing fine silk and warm-colored precious stones daily. In truth, she is somewhat self-conscious about her tail, since she picked up the idea somewhere that copper is less precious than silver or gold, and she feels a need to compensate with expensive decorations. (Copper tails, actually, are slightly less common than either color, but somehow that doesn’t comfort her. And what’s the most uncommon color? Stay tuned and we will find out in a future Mermaid Monday.)

So I don’t forget, copper colors are, from darkest to lightest: dark umber, sienna brown, burnt ochre, pumpkin orange, mineral orange, peach, light peach and white. And of course, the colorless blender, which makes everything beautiful.

Ginger Rogers’ White Dress from Swing Time

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Brian refused to watch Swing Time with me. More specifically, he said: “I don’t believe this is worth watching just because it’s on some 100 great films list. Do you know how many ‘hundred great films’ lists there are? Obviously someone mistakenly placed this movie on one.” Well, I don’t watch his creepy horror-sci-fi movies, so it works out. Most of our time, our Netflix queues co-exist happily, but on some things, we may never quite see eye-to-eye. (And he was right, he would have hated it. But the dancing was gorgeous…)

This is a dress Ginger Rogers wears towards the end of the movie, most prominent in “Never Gonna Dance.” As may be guessed from the general lameness of the bottom third of the dress, I wasn’t really happy with how it turned out, and I don’t know how the skirt works at all. But, oh well.

Crown Collection from Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique

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My apologies, I was quite lazy today and so must resort to crawling through the “Misc” folder of the old Boutique for material. The Misc folder is easily the most interesting one, containing as it does movie replicas, concoctions colored on the computer, outfits other people sent to me and the pets. But I’d forgotten all about these crowns. They must be from later in the Boutique’s history, I think I see the influence of the colorless blender. I think they might work on Sylvia, too…

Oz’s Female Form From The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

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After the eighteen hour exercise in class consciousness, eternally frustrated romance and parade of death that was North and South (I tease, I tease — actually I really enjoyed it, but it was somewhat hard to take at times), I thought that perhaps I would enjoy something lighter. So I’m now listening to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Of course I’ve seen the movie, but I’ve never read the book before. I wasn’t sure about the paperdolling opportunities — Dorothy is too young, the Good Witch of the book is Munchkin-sized — and thought that I might be doing a Wicked Witch of the West outfit from this one. (And I may yet do so…) But there’s a part where Oz appears to the Scarecrow as a beautiful fairy, and the description says that she “was dressed in green silk gauze and wore upon her flowing green locks a crown of jewels. Growing from her shoulders were wings, gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest breath of air reached them.”

Now, after years of paperdolling, I cannot possibly read a paragraph like that one without thinking “Bingo!”…

So here is my interpretation of Oz’s female representation. I must confess, too, that if this hadn’t shown up I’d be drawing one of the Emerald City court ladies. I haven’t drawn anything green for a while, and it’s my favorite color!

Flora’s Red Gown from Professor Layton and the Curious Village

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I’ve been into Professor Layton and the Curious Village lately, playing it every chance I got - using my 15 minute breaks during work to ferry those miserable wolves and chickens across the river, and so on. You come across this dress early in the game, and I thought it was lovely, even if Flora is rather younger than Sylvia. I’m rather fond of Layton’s outfit, actually… who knew brown and orange worked together so well, or that a top hat can be pulled off in any way, shape or form. If I didn’t have so many other outfits I want, I’d so do a female version…

Incidentally, Flora in the Japanese version is named アロマ, or, rather literally romanized, “Aroma.” I can see it as being “Alma” if one slurs quickly over the vowel of the ‘ro’… or maybe it’s just meant to be Aroma. Who knows…

I’d like to do an Oscar dress this year, but I’m not really feeling any of them. Possibly the scaly mermaid one…