Last year in December I was raiding the dollar store to make Christmas bergeres – this year I skipped the polyester and sewed myself a 1790s New Year Ensemble!
On account of being in the middle of relocating from South to North America, I don’t have access to many of my costumes or sewing supplies – they’re in a shipping container on a cargo ship somewhere between Chile and Canada. While an entire New Year gown felt beyond me, I did have a few things with me in a suitcase – including my 1790s round gown, the Green Blob.
A few bits of portable sewing – a new suite of winter-wonderland accessories – that I could do! I put the last stitches into the hem of my cloak just before Christmas, and my mother-in-law and I headed into the mountains to find some snow.
I’d PLANNED to pack the wig I’d used with the Green Blob last fall but I brought this one by mistake. It is quite short and VERY hard to wrangle. I wrapped it up as best I could in a silk chiffonet, and stuffed in a spring of mistletoe (courtesy of Joanne’s Fabrics discount rack) as an anchor, but it WOULD keep springing free.
I did have one very special new accessory with me this Christmas:
Friends traveling in Spain brought me back a beautiful hand-made fan from an atelier in Valencia. It is finely and delicately crafted, and it’s golden color against my green and red and white – it’s the Star at the top of the Christmas tree. (The tree that is me. I am the tree.)
My Valencian fan in my reticule and my hair firmly anchored to my head with mistletoe, we prepared to set off.
Up near the top of Mount Rose, my festive glamour suffered a setback – stepping out of the car, my shawl took off like a large pale bird and wrapped itself around the rear view mirror. I removed myself from the wind, anchored my hair AGAIN, and put my golden, rather-noticeably-sail-like fan carefully back into its box and left it where it couldn’t be blown away.
I lit my lantern and we crunched off across the parking lot of the Sky Tavern ski hill to find a few trees that didn’t have 21st century snowmobile tracks in the view.
Not all of my 1790s New Year ensemble was me-made. The shining ‘Coque de Perle’ halo earrings I was wearing with my round gown came from Dames a la Mode. The necklace is a vintage 1940s Art Deco piece I found on ebay. The fittings are finely made and the saturated emerald paste stones simply GLOW in the low light before a winter storm.
Because a storm was coming. The sky was flat and slate colored.
The wind was cold.
But in my long red cardinal cloak, I was warm as toast.
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