The "Sash" Dress and Cloak

The Cloak is what I'd like to draw your attention to. It's produced as a prototype and in scribblings it's known as the "cape" cloak due to the little shoulder decoration. It's unlikely to be produced for Character Kit until at least March, but here's a glimpse of it.

It's made of black wool-linen and lined with blue stretch silk. The blue lining picks out the blue from the yellow-red-blue swirly trim, which isn't very visible in the photographs. It sits on the shoulders and is fitted, sharing with the other cloaks a rudimentary "anti-choke" design.

I do fear the silver sash rather steals the show in these shots.

The dress owes no little inspiration from that worn by Elizabeth in the 1998 film of the same name. Of course, her version was a gorgeous sage green with a deep salmon-pink sash (quoting the Fashion in Film Tour exhibit). I'm slightly embarrassed by citing the source since the dress by no means lives up to its inspiration and really does pale in comparison. (And let's not even mention the model.) That said, the aim of the dress is not to recreate the Elizabeth dress by any means and I am rather pleased, regardless, by the result.

A few more details on the dress: The skirts are of blue stretch silk and the bodice of a darker blue silk velvet. The sleeves are of a blue chiffon. The underdress is made of a silver thai silk, trimmed in blue velvet ribbon. Those are freshwater pearls over the shoulder. In an ideal world, where I've done all the preparation I should have, they'd be attached in a more sensible manner. Furthermore, the bit of elastic attaching the end of the sleeve to the hand would be replaced with long silver ribbons.

These photos are taken by 1881 Heritage and and the Legco Building in Hong Kong. We got into a just smidgen of trouble by clambering all over aforementioned buildings. Just thought I'd share the shot of myself being terribly undignified. Loretta pointed out that it's just like in America's Top Model, but not having seen a frame of it, I can't really comment.

Many, many more photos under the cut.