A Costumed Affair

One of my favourite places to buy corsetry is a Gothic clothing site called HeavyRed.com. They’re well made, beautiful, suitable for waist-training and tightlacing, and (best of all!) well priced.

They carry two main styles with variations upon them-

-Underbust/Waist-cincher:

These are my favourite from Heavy Red. I actually own the above corset but in a deep blue. Have been wearing it and abusing it for years. They have also been coming out with many new underbust designs that work well with steampunk and other everyday outfits as well as many new fabric options. 

-Overbust:

I own one Heavy Red overbust and holy sparkling goats it is beautiful! My only complaint is that they are not as well designed for curves as the waist cinchers. There’s not a whole lot of bust room built in (although this may be improving based on the photos I’ve seen) and the waist does not come in as dramatically as it would in a waist cincher— an adaptation often necessitated by society today and its lack of regular corset wearing!

Overall I highly recommend HeavyRed, they’re wonderful to buy from and very well priced in their corsetry section.

BUT I have a queue of lovely items for all!

While I understand that people cannot be entirely accurate in their depictions of historical costume, please let it be known that (historically) corsets are underwear, NOT OUTERWEAR! 

One example of a violation of this rule is in the 2004 remake of The Phantom of the Opera. Especially in the scene when she first descends down to the Opera Ghost’s lair, she walks around in simply a corset, nothing a self-respecting woman of that era would have done! It would have been unthinkable for Daae to be walking around in an underskirt and corset, especially in front of a mysterious man. 

Just a thought. Now you can rage at this fact when you see it in other movies. 

I’m thinking more along the lines of tattoos on bellydancers since that is what I am more familiar with. 

On many of the fusion/experimental dancers it seems quite natural, yes? But what if one does both traditional AND experimental AND has an interest in body mods?! It certainly isn’t unheard of for a traditionalist bellydancer to have a tattoo, my own teacher has a small arabesque “tramp stamp” that seems quite natural with most of her performances. It’s a part of her! But would it be odd, say, to have larger belly decorations?

Or, well, what about tattoos all over an otherwise very traditional looking oriental dancer?

(In addition to her visible sleeve and leg tattoo, much of her back is also covered and there is some ink on her chest)

It’s a common debate. I, myself, am working on a design for a hip tattoo that will eventually reach up my ribcage. In order to settle the debate I am working to make sure that the colors of the tattoo won’t clash with my costumes and that people know that the tattoo is who I am— not merely an accessory to my dancing. 

With this blog/tumblr so far. I’ve obviously only been at it for a few days, but I’m curious to know what people like so far and what they’d like to see more of. Thanks : ]

A while back, a friend convinced me to watch this “trippy eighties movie with David Bowie.” I knew a bit about Bowie and figured that it would be awful and hilarious… I was completely correct. As for the plotline, I leave that up to you to discover as we are here to discuss costuming.

Hair crazy, pants tight, Bowie is nothing but Bowie in this movie. He’s the classical eighties personality, one that nearly all have heard of even if they haven’t personally experienced that era.

And now (for better or for worse) that era is said to be coming back. The musical styles are creeping in on the commonly accepted, as are crazy hair and tight pants. Time to bring back Bowie and the costumes of the eighties? 

Anachronistic costuming such as is found in Baz Luhrmann’s production of Romeo+Juliet is quite common, even outside of Shakespeare. Are plays from the thirties or forties performed in that specific era of costuming? No. Anachronism can be used either as a focal point of a production or nearly unnoticeable. 

Shakespeare, however, is especially fun to play with. By placing one of the Bard’s plays in a new setting, the universality of the themes and wit are emphasized. Aside from Romeo+Juliet, I’ve seen two such modified Shakespearian plays, As You Like It (at the American Players Theatre in Wisconsin, USA) and Romeo and Juliet (at the Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, CA) and enjoyed them both greatly… although I secretly had to admit disappointment at the lack of period dress ;]