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The Gasfitter's Ball, which is hosted by the Curious Collectors of Baker Street, decided to do a Victorian "fancy dress"
ball for this year's function, after the Devonshire House Ball of 1895. Feeling inspired, I decided to "go Japanese"
and be the Empress of Japan for the ball. The Victorians actually loved just about everything Japanese or Chinese, and
the clothing of the late Victorian era had a lot of Japanese influences in it, especially in the Arts & Crafts circles.
I had to figure out how a Victorian would make a Japanese kimono outfit, which was an intersting experience. Making
an accurate kimono would be wrong for this endeavor, so I had to figure out how the Victorian would have screwed it up.
See below for more details. I got the geisha wig and geta (wooden sandals) on Ebay, along with a couple of hair ornaments.
The other hair ornaments and the tabbi socks I bought in Little Tokyo here in Los Angeles. The hair ornaments are authentic.
There is a pair of green chopsticks in my hair as well, that have small dragonflies on them. I couldn't resist buying
them since they matched the dragonfly print of the brocade.
Click on any of the photos for a larger picture.
| Front view |
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| This is the dress after I finished it. |
Above is a full length shot of the outfit. This was actually designed to go over my Edwardian corset, although
you lose some of the effect with the full kimono sleeves. The kimono itself was made from a Simplicity kimono costume
pattern I've had for a while. The dragonfly brocade was a present from a friend a few years ago, and it tended to try
and shred itself if you looked at it wrong. There are a few snags in the fabric because of that but you don't really
notice them with the busy print. The white fake inner kimono is a piece of white silk satin with metallic gold butterflies,
which is fabric I've owned for over 20 years (I found it for 50 cents at a Goodwill store in Hawaii when I lived there and
have a couple of yards of it left still - it also went into a Tudor costume years ago).
Below is a close up of the top. The "obi" is actually vintage obi fabric, bought from Texuba when they were
having their retirement sale earlier this year. I pulled apart the obi and used the fabric as a kind of corselet - it
has grommets and a lacing in back under the bow, and some plastic boning to help it stay in shape.
| Detail of the bodice area |
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| Back View |
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| The back of the dress, showing the obi. |
Above is a full length back shot of the dress, showing the obi bow and the train. I was in two minds about the
train since I wanted to dance, and wound up sewing snaps into the inside of the kimono at the last minute so that I could
pull the train up off the floor to dance in (I didn't dance in the geta either as they were too slippery for that).
Of course, the logical thinking was that any Victorian would have a train on their evening wear.
Below is a detail of the obi bow. Real obis actually tie into a bow in the back but this one is completely trumped
up. It attaches to the obi sash/belt via velcro tabs at the top. The center piece is just a circular tube of the
vintage obi fabric, with a large overlap of obi sewn to that. There is a big stuffed "bow" of the dragonfly brocade
to fill out the rest of it and it goes through the tube of obi fabric. It mostly behaved itself by staying on during
the evening, but I need to move the velcro tabs to line up better. And don't try to drive or lean back in a chair while
wearing this!
| Back view - obi |
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| This is a detail of the "obi". |
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