Playing Dressup

Festive Wear

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is located in Irwindale California. A city in the LA area. (See my other blog for faire fun).
I took My Pleasure this past weekend there. My costume choices were made weeks in advance. I worked on them down to the last days. The most fun wasn’t necessarily My dressing up, but seeing the myriad of costumes other people choose to wear to this fantasy laden historical re-enactment event.

Like the Fairy Festivals and the Comic Cons, SciFi Cons and SCA events that I have been to, the creativity or LACK there of is what intrigues me. I also take perverse pleasure in bringing along a friend or two who have are “faire virgins” or close to and watch their reactions.

I did not play “Bad Garb Bingo” this trip. In all actuality there were more good, damn good, costumes at this event than bad ones. So I don’t think I could have filled a Bingo card. That is not to say there weren’t some doozies.
Remember that on the slide shows you can click a pic and it will zoom in and show it better.

Sunday was Military appreciation day. . . .looked what showed up.

It was Bachanal weekend, which means Wine Tasting. I never did see wine, but I did see some strange “green men” outfits.


Enjoy these "Good Costumes". Be inspired, like I was.

On the Friday I spent the whole day in design heaven. I went to my favorite Corset supply shop. then went down the street to a fabric store that reminds me of Powell's book store here in Portland. F & S Fabrics, they had 3 stores in a 2 blocks radius. upholstry, fancy stuff and cottons. None were quilting stuff. And they had one of those walls we love. . .boxes and boxes of BUTTONS!!
Then my costume companion for the day (Tim aka Roddie) took me to his tailor. Yes tailor. Seems Tim not only does Ren Faire but also Dicken's Faire in San Francisco. And he has a full Victorian outfit. Renaissance Dancewear is his tailor and I got to drool on and pet all kinds of costumes and sewing machines while Tim was fitted with a wonderful wool suit circa 1870's.

Now we would have gone on to Mood which is the famous fabric store in Bravo's Project Runway. And we also wanted to go to the Garment district in LA, but there just was not enough time. The traffic in LA was horrendous.
But here is a pic of my treasures I did get.
2 - Busks (one for me one for daughter Cameron)
1 - lacing bars for my corset
1- lacing strip for Cameron's corset.
10 yards - bone casing
10 yards - German plastic boning (Best I have ever worked with)
1 yard - Coutil (very dense weave fabric for the corset itself)
3 cards of buttons
1 special button with a lilypad and a spider on it. (Guess where that is going to show up. . .
I already have my steel and spiral boning here so I am ready to tackle the next project.

While at the faire I did get one more item. I will post it on a different blog. He is a bit camera shy right now.