Victorian Mourning Outfit: New Project

I've been doing research on Victorian fashions a lot of late. I has the desire a few years ago to make a nice Victorian dress, but never got around to it. I think this was because I didn't really have anything to use it for.

Over the last year, my husband and I started getting into the Steampunk subculture, him moreso than I. We went to the Wicked Renaissance Festival in Whippany, NJ, which had a steampunk section. My husband's first outfit turned out very nicely (and he won the prize for Best Men's Outfit). My outfit wasn't bad, but it did lack direction. I just couldn't really figure out what I wanted to do, what sort of persona I was aiming for, and realized that I quickly ran out of time in what I did want to get done. Ah well, 'tis how things are at times.

Last weekend, my husband and I went to Brimsteam, which is a NJ and PA based steampunk LARP. A buddy told me about it a few months ago, and ever since, my husband has been gungho to go. So we decided to go for a couple of hours to get a feel; not NPCing, not playing. Because we were dressed the part (since we didn't want to detract from the atmosphere), we were allowed to "play" for a couple hours for free. I do have to say that I really enjoyed interacting with the people, and like the fact that it seems to have a more mature crowd than what I'm accustomed too. Yay for the possibility of less drama!!!

So, after we left the game, we started working out the kinks in our main characters, Olivia and Nigel, and altered them a bit to fit the "feel" of the game a bit better. We talked about costuming and such, which is something we discussed before, but now felt the strong inspiration to really buckle down. The following day, we picked up cloth to get started.

My cloth is all dark so far and cotton: plain black and black with a dark grey pattern. Olivia is not a goth type character, but is in mourning. I found a website that talks about the various stages of mourning, so I am taking some inspiration from that. Sadly, this is bound to be an expensive outfit given the large amount of materials needed... and I'm not sure I'll have it completed by the next game... which is only 3 weeks away (according to my husband).

We are narrowing down different options for these character outfits and figuring out designs. We are also going to make a list of priority items that we feel we *need* for the upcoming game. My husband is working on the NERF gun modifications, though I know there's a chance that my character might not have hers yet. I will be setting up a blog for him to post his projects on, much like I am doing with this one.

More (on design ideas and possible a sketched design of my own) later.