Borrowed Costume: Yang Guifei

If she turned her head and smiled she cast a deep spell, Beauties of Six Palaces vanished into nothing.
Hair’s cloud, pale skin, shimmer of gold moving,
Flowered curtains protected on cool spring evenings.
Those nights were too short. That sun too quick in rising.

The emperor neglected the world from that moment,
Lavished his time on her in endless enjoyment.
She was his springtime mistress, and his midnight tyrant.
Though there were three thousand ladies all of great beauty,
All his gifts were devoted to one person.

Po Chü-Yi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Yang Yuhuan, more commonly known by her title Yang Guifei (Imperial Consort Yang), is thought to be one of the four most beautiful women in Chinese history. She was, of course, so beautiful that it was a curse. Both sides of the rebellion believed her to the root cause of the Emperor's negligence and the loyalists demanded her execution. The Emperor ordered that she be taken to a Buddhist shrine and strangled to death.*

She was first married to a prince, one of Emperor Xuanzong's many sons. There various stories about how she came into the Emperor's favour, but she did and was eventually made imperial consort through a ruse that involved her briefly becoming a Taoist nun (thereby voiding her first marriage).

Like many famous female figures of folklores, there's an uncomfortable aftertaste of sexism that comes with her story. It can be said that her story revolves around the trope Love Ruins the Realm (warning: tvtropes link) for not only is she responsible for a rebellion, it also marks the beginning of the Tang dynasty's downfall. But it isn't just Love that ruins the Realm, it's the woman. It is a theme that threads through Chinese folklore: Red Dye Ruins Water.

For it is women that causes the downfall of monarchs and nations: the Emperor, wallowing in the pleasures of the flesh, gives in to her frivolous demands (famously the lychees were relayed to the capital from Guangzhou) and allow her corrupt relatives free reign at court.

Most of stories I know present her as hopelessly tragic, fatefully cursed and politically naive. She is both the root cause of the Tang dynasty's downfall and yet without true agency its cause. It is not her ambitions or her scheming that tears apart the Imperial court, but simply her transcendent, immortal beauty. She is more analogous to Helen of Troy than a true femme fatale.

As almost synonymous with beauty, Yang Guifei is also interesting for the fact that she is often held to be plump. She is alluded to in the saying about differing standards of beauty, often contrasted with Zhao Feiyan, who was said to be very slender. (Which of course, makes this a terrible cosplay of her. But there are only so many historical women who have distinctive outfits.) The way she is talked about, the way her alleged beauty is described (and sometimes discredited) is especially interesting given the various pressures on Asian women to be skinny.

Numerous poems, books, films and so forth have been inspired directly and indirectly by her. Tale of Genji, regarded by some as the first novel written by a woman, was inspired by The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (partially quoted above). Various sumptuously costumed tv series are linked to here. There is even a musical, named Sacrifice, though I feel rather ambivalent about their understanding of the story: "Ultimately the message is simple; true love means sacrifice. [...] This great story enticed three western authors to China, intoxicated by its exoticism. What they found is the perfect vehicle for drawing west and east together; a transcendent love story that is, in fact, universal."

The costume comes in three layers, though only the scarlet outer robe is really visible. The hair is not a wig, though only a portion of it is my own. The shape of the train is what makes this costume really dramatic, with the sheer expanse of red. Tang dynasty costume was very much about a high waistline, enormous flowing sleeves and long, long skirts. At one point, the skirts actually started above the breasts.

Since we've also been on the subject of costumes for Empire LRP of late, it seems worth mentioning that the shape and flow of these robes would make for good Urizen costumes, though certainly not the colours. The red is far, far too bright for the pastel-loving spire-dwellers. The use of brocade as trim has potential, but only if it were very muted in its pattern.

The full story behind these photos was told in the preview post and the other photos from that day can be found filed under Xiaolongnu. A set of robes like these can be commissioned from the Mercenary and would likely cost between £50-150, depending on number of layers and choice of materials.

More photos under the cut.

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* The version I remember as a child was that he issued her with some dozen metres of red silk - a roundabout way of telling her to hang herself.

Empire: From the Streets of Holberg

The League was an immensely fun, if chaotic shoot. The direct sunlight was deeply unforgiving on our whites and creams, especially given the better camera being out of battery during this segment of Saturday. On the other hand, we had pulled together sufficient costumes that we really felt we had on our hands a lively cast of characters to pose. When reviewing the photos, a convoluted narrative of intrigue, passtion and jealousy seemed to unfold from the sequence of images, following the misadventures surrounding this odd little red leather book. It is probably best we don't dwell on it here, but suffice to say it was a deeply evocative experience.

The bravos are both in doublets and are lightly armoured on one side (for the fighting of duels! With flourish!). They are actually sharing the same set of plate which I believe is from Mytholon. The rose rapier is a custom job from Eldritch and other is a Medlock. The mask is from Durham's Georgian Window, though I don't know if they ever intended it to be worn.

Pillywiggin is wearing the same velvet gown that appeared briefly in Mirroring the Pre-Raphaelites (and did not get its own post for some reason). Other costumes on that blog that would work in League include: Early Venetian Gown (though these specific colours are a touch dark and gloomy); Winged Doublet; Tudor Loose Robe.

The various dresses pictured would cost in the region of £90-150 to commission, depending on design and materials. Both the doublets pictures can be purchased at Character Kit and fit a men's Large. Do email in for a more detailed quote.

More photos of the Streets of Holberg under the cut.

Empire: The Shield Wall of Highguard

Given how we were pulling together these costumes from what we had about (both in terms of stock and personal kit), it was a little tricky to find the identical shields and tabards needed for the proper Highguard look. We managed to borrow one of Durham University Treasure Trap's tabards made by our patron goddess, the legendary Anne.

The base layers and much of the armour worn by the Shoddy Knight is the same as that in the Dawn photos. It is the colours of the tabard and the choice of shield and helmet (Norman, incidentally, from Planet Trading - they were bought for Ragnarok) that makes the difference here, with Dawn favouring bright primary colours and Highguard with their dark blacks and whites.

The shield is the Lorien Shield from Character Kit and the sword is again the Excalibur.

A couple more photos of the lone solider of Highguard under the cut.

Miranda and Layout Update

Been playing about with photoshop and I've desecrated Waterhouse's Miranda by smooshing it with a photo we took of the Pillywiggen in the kirtle.

In other news, the blog has had a redesign and apologies for any wibbliness this may cause to your browsing experience. Also, many of the older posts are probably not happy with being viewed at this width. I know about it and it should be fixed... eventually.

Happy New Year from the Wishing Tree (and some blurry photos of carnival costumes)

Happy New Year!

Things will be slowly, slowly churning back into motion over the next few days. It's been a good few days, including some amazing fireworks (you can go catch the highlights on youtube, if you so wish) and I even found time to go visit the famous Wishing Tree at Lam (literally "forest") Village.

Recovering from the Weight of our Wishes

The Wishing Tree has had a long and glorious tradition. The process is simple: you write your wish on a bit of paper, attach a mandarin and throw. The aim is to get lodge the mandarin (wish and all) on the branches of the tree. It can be seen in many a Hong Kong drama, often in some sort of melodramatic scene where someone is tearfully and desperately hurling a mandarin into the tree (as it storms around them).

The original tree suffered from the weight of all our wishes (or more specifically, mandarins) and a branch broke in 2005. Since then, they've built a plastic tree for people to throw plastic mandarins at. The original trees are still alive and recovering, but I'm sure there's some sort of pseudoprofound metaphor about the state of modernity we can extract from that little story.

Around New Year, it seems, a market has sprung up around it (with the help of the tourism board). There have also been floats and Chinese Opera and many, many things. I was only there briefly to throw a plastic orange, eat traditional Hong Kong egg waffles and see Rampage Carnival (or that was what I caught their name as).

There is also the triple temple to Tin Hau (Queen Mother of the Western Skies), Long Mu (Mother of Dragons) and Man Mo (Twinned gods of Literary and Martial matters). Though it is clear who is favoured as only Tin Hau's section was bustling with worshipers.

There is also an award-winning toilet, I'm not sure why it's relevant, but it's definitely there. I'm sure it says something else that it's probably bigger than the temples in size.

(And here's a photo of me in a coat inspired by Georgian riding coats, with rose buttons and blackwork. It should get its own blogpost one of these days.)

All the best and there are some (blurry) photos of Rampage Carnival under the cut.

Portraits and Costumes: Henry VIII and Wives

It seems to be a thing that every other historical attraction with an empty room and a tenuous connection to the infamous Henry VIII will have a display of him and his six wives. Or it may simply seem so as I've seen three such arrangements (Warwick Castle; Hever Castle; Hampton Court), two of them in the recent past and have been musing on the subject.

The costumes are all clearly taken from iconic portraits, though some details differ. This set of photos are taken at Warwick Castle. The room was quite dark, so I've tweaked the colours and contrasts on these photos for a little more clarity.

Putting the portraits and the photos of the costumes side by side is a tad disappointing. Henry VIII, for example, isn't as insanely wide as his portrait. The lines of the costumes simply aren't as crisp and clean, or as detailed and opulent. All this is perhaps more fault of the portrait than the costume. After all, a portrait is not a photograph and it is hardly the fault of the costume makers that they cannot reproduce the exact idealised world of the portrait. Equally, the budget for the costume probably cannot match that of a Queen of England's. That, and puffed linings are obnoxiously hard to get right in real life.

The challenges reminded me greatly of those faced by cosplayers who want replicate (or in some cases simply evoke) a particular costume that exists only on the page or screen.

On the subject of Tudor portraits, I found this portrait archive particularly comprehensive.

Also, here's an iron capotain. It's awesome. Made all the more amusing to me due to the sheer number of hats that have been worn as "armour" (some with more justification than others) over the years.

More photos of the exhibition and some associated rambling under the cut.

The Little Frustrations of Costume Research: Museum Websites

Dress Ensemble, 1790
Museum of London

I would be the first to admit that costumes here aren't by any means the most historically accurate. There are various reasons, including accommodating modern tailoring techniques or simply that the originals were designed for heated ballrooms and not open fields. But the Mercenary does do a substantial amount of research into actual historical clothing.

Which leads me into the rant: the numerous frustrations of museum websites.

(Démodé, incidentally, has a extensive list of museums with extant costumes, though be warned as it is not without broken links. The 18th Century Notebook is also excellent, with extracts from the descriptions. I'm contemplating doing an annotated link page, but I suspect it may descend into incoherent irritation.)

I suppose museum websites aren't designed to provide me with an extensive photographic record of each of its items. And perhaps, the logic is that if one could find the item online, one would no longer desire to go to the museum in the first place.

That said, well over half the items I'm examining online are in store and not on display. And truth be told, backs of costumes aren't always visible in exhibits themselves, due to the disadvantages of space and sometimes, an overly creative curator.

Ball Gown, 1785
Victoria and Albert Museum

Phoenix Art Museum, for example, has a beautifully snazzy flash-based website, but it's slow to load, doesn't provide shots of the back and doesn't allow you to save the photos. Kyoto Costume Institute is pretty good (and now supports permanent links to its items) but short of rummaging through the page source, there's no good way of saving the photo (and really, it's easier to scroll up and down to view a large photo that fills your screen than to operate its odd little "magnify" feature).

The Victoria and Albert Museum has an extensive collection of old costumes and some items are wonderfully catalogued with front and back shots (such as this gown and petticoat). However, some, such as this eighteenth century gown have only one closeup shot of the pleats at the back of the bodice. Equally sack back gown is only represented by its sleeve detail. (That intriguing looking ball gown to the right? Only its back is photographed, though admittedly extensively.) I suspect it's because these photos were taken for Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail and were used to illustrate particular features rather than to document the garment as a whole. Bowes Museum has a lovely collection, but it's still frustrating to only be able to see the front of this two piece bustle dress, when the description intriguingly tells me that it has a skirt with "main fullness at back for bustle." Same can be said about Gemeente Museum Den Haag.

Colonial Williamsburg's eMuseum, on the other hand, has a deeply frustrating search function and I'm still not sure if "category" is synonymous with "highlights from select exhibits" (it doesn't seem like it should be, but otherwise, the only way to gain access to their textiles section is just by guessing what they've catalogued everything as. Not impossible, but tedious.) Also, they don't like photographing things from more than one angle, but I think we've gotten used to that by now.

Ending the rant on a happier note, Chrome's built in Google Translate, incidentally, has been a godsend. It's not that it doesn't give me occasionally baffling phrases (such as "Future Clothing" from the National Museum of Denmark), but it does provide the rudiments for a rummage around the databases.

Strange Inspirations from the Hair x Nail Artpiece Parade

I was rooting through old photos and came across this set taken at the Hair x Nail Artpiece Parade. It almost seems to echo the extravagant and utterly outrageous hairstyles of the 1770s (including, of course, the very famous Coiffure à l'Indépendance ou le Triomphe de la liberté, that commemorated the victory of the frigate La Belle Poule during the battle of Ouessant).

The Artpiece Parade seemed to be a random extravaganza of strange (and dubiously wonderful) hairpieces and fake nails. The latter part my past self seemed to have been rather apathetic about and I have only one photo (under the cut, scroll to the bottom)


But yes, it is strange and somewhat interesting.

In other news (and very tangentially related news), extremely talented Reesha (of Reeshiebeads) has been working on an Amazing Peacock Hat for me, so watch this space. I am very much looking forward to having a giant bird on my head.

More photos of this insanity under the cut.

Poison Pendants and New Buttons...

I am utterly in love with the style of these buttons with its use of two colours of alloy. I found them the other day and am toying with them right now. Unfortunately, due to it featuring the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom as its design, there's really not many live roleplay systems you can wear it in. It was adopted in 1837, so perhaps we could do something with it in the context of Victorian Steampunk.

If you fancy them, I'm really rather keen to see them on a garment, so do drop me an email.

I'm also negotiating the sourcing of little poison pendants. They're little tiny box pendants, absolutely adorable, wonderfully subtle (though perhaps almost too subtle, I'm not sure there is much that fits in them). But hopefully they'll be coming to Character Kit soon-ish.

Preview and Overview: Flembic Splendour

Long story short, Chris Brett was looking to do some photographs of Maelstrom characters for a university project of his. After some deliberation and calculation, I agreed to embark upon an epic journey down to Wales with a massive backpack filled with kit.

This went quite a lot better than last time we did a studio shoot to say the least.

The series is more something I did that incidentally happens to feature quite a bit of the old Mercenary's catalogue rather than something that was shot with intention of promoting the clothing.

Chris had wanted a series of photos that showcased the flamboyance and pageantry of Flambard, the country that never was (as they say) and as part of that he was wanting to depict actual characters. He had at first wanted to do all the cultures, but that proved rather too ambitious for the limit of his project.

Due to the nature of depicting actual characters, these photos are rather more Maelstrom-specific, and indeed, Odette-specific than normal. The photo to the left, for example, includes a reference to The Prince Edmond Duelling Club.

The Designer has long teased me about my reliance on wall-based posing and the sudden lack was an unexpected, if interesting challenge. There was a lot of silly dancing and messing about between the rather more dignified shots as I vacillated between poses. We had more than a few props to play with (including Chris' beautiful blunderbuss and a saber borrowed from the local fencing society).

The effort isn't perfect, nor was the selection of costumes. Had I known about the dark backgrounds in advance, I would have likely chosen fewer dark-coloured dresses. I even had a slight wardrobe malfunction with the zip on a particularly old dress.

But yes, I should be posting some more of the test shoot photos (as they are the digital ones) over the course of the next week or so. I'm still debating whether or not I should take the opportunity to insert digressions into Flembic culture. Equally, I may well be seduced south again by the lure of the soft studio lighting for future costumes. Opinions?

Commission: Zevran's Leather Armour

Another commission with strong influences from Dragon Age: Origins, though this time the light leather armour for a Zevran Arainai cosplay. It's also done by Julie Knox, she of the Morrigan's Goatskin Skirt, the Oriet armour and the Monster Pauldrons.

Due to the person who commissioned this not wanting it any more, you can purchase this very set of armour for £180. Aside from looking like Zevran, it may be useful for Profound Decision's Odyssey: the Great Game.

Making something that was never designed to exist in the physical realm functional and wearable was quite a challenge for Julie. Rendering human-looking elbows and knees is quite tricky, even for the highly complex graphics departments of today.

After a lot of squinting, we realised that the armour (and many of the other models in Dragon Age) was designed to purposefully obscure the joints with thick "padding" so as to no need to accurately render elbows and knees. However, such padding on human joints would make them uncomfortable, if not highly awkward to move.

Very few of the characters in Dragon Age bother wearing anything under the armour and again, this made doing the photos rather awkward. Again leather on skin isn't exactly very comfortable. In the end, we used the basic eyelet shirt under it and our model got to keep his trousers.

We didn't really have any conveniently blonde, long-haired men around, though the Designer did suggest that all we really needed to complete the Dragon Age look was to splatter our model with a bottle of fake blood.

As always, the swords are from Character Kit. They're a little small, strictly speaking, to be swords from Dragon Age, but the perspective seems to make up for it a little.

This very set of armour (roughly a men's size medium, drop us an email) is available for £180.

More photos of the Zevran leather armour under the cut.

Commission: Steampunk Magistrate

The steampunk magistrate consists of a real silk surcoat (or chao pao, 朝袍, literally "dynasty robe") and a hand-embroidered rank badge (also known as a "mandarin square"). The surcoat is fully lined, edged in a slightly lighter shade of green and has engraved jade buttons and side pockets hidden in the seams. The mandarin necklace Jha has made herself.  


The outfit was designed for Jha's steampunk persona, a Qing Dynasty colonial magistrate hot on the heels of opium smugglers. She was hoping to introduce education about the Opium Wars to steampunk events and was planning her character around it.

More photos and discussion of the steampunk magistrate outfit under the cut.

Prototype: Naval Coat

The naval coat is made from dark blue wool fully lined in a thick white cotton. It's a coat with a good, very solid weight to it. There are two flap side pockets and two hidden pockets. This is much more of an officer's coat, rather different in colour and style to the Portuguese uniform a few weeks ago.

We're not entirely happy with the coat as whilst it's correct to have the pockets firmly to the side, it does rather make them somewhat inconvenient to use. There's also finite use for a coat that doesn't close in larp.

It'd probably be good for an Admiral James Norrington cosplay if one rolled it in the mud enough.

The coat is worn with a dress shirt that is the model's own and the white linen fall-front trousers are available by commission from the Mercenary at £15.

To commission a coat in similar materials would cost in the region of £140-150. The prototype is available for £135 and you should be able to buy it from the website in a few days. The impatient can simply drop me an email.

More photos of the commodore's coat under the cut.

Not Quite Waterhouse's Miranda: Linen Kirtle and Cotehardie

The underdress (or kirtle) is in red linen and is laced under the arm. The overgown (or cotehardie to use the more controversial term) is in a coarse teal linen and is buttoned down the front.

Not half as windswept and certainly without the sinking ship, but still slightly reminiscent of John William Waterhouse's Miranda which was what inspired this simple medieval-esque ensemble. The sketch was done quite a few months ago, though without much intention of ever being made then. The shape of the sleeves have altered somewhat and we added the buttons down the front. It does seem a shame to have the lovely red linen kirtle is almost completely hidden by the overgown. It is possible to construct it as one garment like the banquet dress recently sketched.

There's a temptation to ramble about the colours and symbolism, repressed passion and unleashed tempests, but it seems somewhat far-fetched. And the Pillywiggen would probably never forgive me.

Like the rest of Shakespeare's work, the Tempest has been having a healthy afterlife. Most recently, The Tempest recently been made into a film with albeit quite a different aesthetic, though their costume designer, Sandy Powel, did get nominated an Academy Award for her work in it.

The orc dagger and other weapons are, as usual, from Character Kit.

To commission a similar kirtle or overgown individually would cost in the region £40-50, though a set would cost £70-90. To buy the prototype set (sized to a UK size 16, but somewhat adjustable) from the Costume Mercenary would cost in the region of £70.

More photos of the Miranda under the cut.

Concept Sketches: A Mostly Medieval Banquet Dress

For all the dresses on the blog, we don't often commissions for them and certainly not to design them froms scratch. Perhaps it's due to their inherent lack of practicality (and frequently very character-specific nature, for those in larp and believe in the curse*) . So I was rather pleased when I was asked to do a banquet dress.

For those who don't live around here, Durham University Treasure Trap hosts anual banquets for current members past and present (and friends!). It's a weekend of dancing and drinking, feasting and fighting (the tournament for weaponsmaster is traditionally held the day after the banquet).

The dress was supposed to be light (as despite being held in Feburary, the hall is almost always very warm) and easy to dance in. It was also to be green.

I was intent on using these golden ivy leaf buttons (and we ended up buying the supplier out of them, which is very inconvenient for any future designs hinging on them), which seemed to dictate at least a touch of the elven.

A meander through costume books later (for all their faults, John Peacock's books are good for that sort of spirited, illustrated gallop through western costume history), we had settled on the high middle ages and sketching happened (the results of which illustrate this post).

Of course, there are also the green dagged sleeves.*

Hopefully there will photos of the lovely woman in her own dress next weekend.

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* In live roleplay, it commonly believed that you will have doomed your character the moment you buy them character-specific kit. They will likely die within an event and you will never be able to wear that gorgeous frockcoat/ dress/ shirt/ armour/ jewellry ever again.

* The Designer has been teasing me for some time about the fact that the only character in my alleged novel who had any physical description (clothing or otherwise) was wearing green dagged sleeves. I have, apparently, an obsession.

Commission: Morrigan's Goatskin Skirt

This skirt is made from leather and goatskin. It was commissioned as a cosplay piece for Morrigan, the witch of the wild, is a mage from Bioware's computer roleplay game Dragon Age: Origins.

Her character design has changed significantly from her concept art to here appearance in the Sacred Ashes trailer to her actual in-game model. Her skirt appears rather softer and more tentacular in its earlier incarnation, not to mention the dramatically different shirt.

This goatskin skirt is based predominately off this piece of concept art. The in-game model wears a much neater version, with the dropped belts being much more rigid and regular. The much messier, organic look of the concept art works far better with reality. It did, however, take far more belts than originally thought.

It was only the skirt that was commissioned from us, but for the purposes of these quick photos, Julie did throw together a red cowl and deployed an eldritch spear to complete the look.

A set of leather armour for the character Zevran was also commissioned. We may get some photos of that eventually, perhaps even, the new owners willing, some at the convention they're going to.

To commission a similar skirt would cost in the region of £150, though this may fluctuate depending on the cost of materials used.

A few more photos of morrigan's skirt under the cut.

Pale Green Linen Pet-en-l’air

This pet-en-l'air and its ruffle-frill trim is made of pale green linen and lined in cream cotton. It is fastened down the front with hooks and eyes, as well as matching pale green satin ribbon.

This "pet-en-l'air jacket" (as it is called in the collection, though it has also been called a casaquin or caraco) is based loosely on one in Manchester Art Gallery, dated to around 1780-90. According to the gallery description, the original was reputed to have belonged to Eva Marie Veigel, wife of playwright and actor David Garrick.

The original pet-en-l'air has become rather popular online and has appeared on a string of tumblr blogs, including OMG that dress, Historical Fashion and Defunct Fashion. It has also appeared on Fuchsia's 18th century dress blog, where it was called a "little temptress of a very short pet-en-l'air."

Needless to say, this is not an exact replica. It is simplified somewhat in its construction and is shaped to fit a significantly less heavily corseted form. However, like the original, the sacque back has narrow pleats stitched down at shoulders and loose below.

The ribbon ties across the front are on the messy side and can perhaps do with being shorter (though this make them trickier to tie). The button-loops at the inner edge of the elbow-length sleeves could also do with adjusting shorter to accentuate the gatherings.

The pet-en-l'air was worn with a dark purple faux silk skirt, a white cotton voile chemise and a wreath of very silly desiccated red roses.

It was rather late in the day when these photos were taken and the bright, yellow light seemed to push it to the side of overexposure.

To commission a similar casaquin in linen or cotton would cost in the region of £50-55.

More photos of the linen pet-en-l'air under the cut.

Commission: Dashing Asymmetrical Naval Uniform

The coat of the uniform has appeared in the post entitled Dashing Asymmetrical Military Coat, though somewhat less dashingly worn in those set of rather hurried indoor photos. In the same post can be found the photos of the replica uniform (Soldier of the Portuguese War Fleet, c. 1761, taken at the Macau Maritime Museum) that this outfit was based off. Almost all the design decisions were made based on extensive squinting at the replica uniform rather than further research (which was for the most part incredibly fruitless).

The coat, waistcoat, breeches and gaiters are all made from the same soft dark blue wool. The coat has two inside pockets and is lined in faux silk and red wool. The mock-braiding is for the most part unremarkable, but the ensemble does features almost a hundred shiny gold buttons. The high-collared frilly shirt worn under it all is in white linen.

It does appear we have yet to perfect what we're doing with the gaiters, (having conducted further research, I can now say that they're supposed to be buttoned to the bottom of the breeches). We may be seeing a new incarnation of them in the near-ish future.

The sword is an Eldritch and the pistol is the same replica derringer we've been using in just about every shoot since the beginning of the blog. The photos were taken next to Cadbury's chocolate factory in Bournville ("Bourn" for the river and "ville" for the fashion for naming things in the French fashion).

To commission an ensemble in similar materials from the Mercenary, including coat, shirt, breeches, waistcoat and gaiters, would cost in the region of  £180. The coat by itself would cost in the region of £100.

More photos of the dashing asymmetrical naval uniform under the cut.

An Extravagance for the Eye: Early Renaissance Gown

The gown draws heavily from gowns of the early renaissance, specifically of Venice. It's a veritable patchwork of period elements that will no doubt make the lovely people over at GoFugThyself want gouge their eyes out.

But it is rather too tempting to dabble in the described by some as an "extravagance for the eye." Especially after revisiting the sumptuously costumed if extremely problematic Dangerous Beauty (there was once a page of caps on the Period Movies Blog, but it seems to have vanished).

Whilst certainly inspired by history, this gown is by now means accurate and in some ways, that I'm wandering around a dubiously romanticised recreation of Venice in the photos is rather appropriate. I am neither wearing the fascinating and very fashionable chopines of the era nor do I have my hair in an exciting headdress.

The giornea and sleeves are of black silk velvet and the shift is of cotton (the sleeves aren't quite long enough, but it was the only out of the wash at the time). It's all laced together with black ribbon (and may I add it takes forever to get into this dress - it really isn't a gown for someone looking for quick costume changes.)

The lighting in many of these photos is so strange because of the fact that we aren't actually outdoors as they are taken at inside Macau's Venetian, hardly the "dreamed of city." The camera seemed to go into overcompensation with the lighting and the results are certainly interesting.

It was when I was looking for the exhibition photos of the asymmetrical naval coat that I unearthed these photos from my trip to Macau almost half a year ago. It had seemed appropriate to gamble (read: play slots) with an over the top "Marie Antoinette" gown on and once I was on that train of thought, swanning through The Venetian in a similarly themed gown was only a small step away.

More photos of the early renaissance gown under the cut.

A Length of Linen, with a Rider-Waite Tarot Theme

There isn't much of it left, but I couldn't resist: white linen with a Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot print. That is indeed the Empress (with her crown of stars) and the Ace of Wands (though it seems to be sprouting more foxgloves than usual). Many of the smaller motifs also come from the deck (the sun and the moon, from their cards respectively; my eagle-eyed friend has also spotted the winged lion's head from the two of cups, there are others, just keep staring).

For those who aren't immediately recognising the images, the Rider-Waite-Smith is one of the most iconic and widely used tarot decks out there. Numerous modern decks have drawn inspiration (and often basic layout) from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. A brief gander at Aeclectic will throw up a plethora of beautiful decks drawn in the RWS tradition (including the Real Art of the Tarot, a really rather swoon-worthy incarnation). They were originally commissioned from Pamela Colman Smith by Arthur Edward Waite and was the first to illustrate the minor arcana.

(I did briefly wonder about the copyright of the RWS images used and it does, perhaps unsurprisingly, have quite a lengthy and complicated history.)

I'm very much in love with it, though I have no idea what should be done with it. There's about two and a half yards, enough for a shirt, a waistcoat (perhaps even two), a skirt or the contrast of something.

Given the prominence of the Empress and the Ace of Wands, I suspect this isn't exactly the print for everyone, but if you feel inspired, drop me a line.