Belle Époque masquerade costume

Well, I had planned to make the clover costume, convinced that I had a lot of cotton sateen in the right colour. However, when I dug into my stash I realized that I didn’t have quite as much of it than I thought. What I did have, was yards and yards of dark blue polyester sateen. Not the greatest of material- it was left over after making theatre costumes years ago, but the colour is lovely. My friend Lithia had already decided to make a version of the star costume and we decided that I could make one too. I have silver fabrics at home, so I’ll use that instead of gold. I’m keeping to my plans of making the bodice with drawstrings as I had already made the pattern and don’t feel I have the time to make a fitted bodice anyway. I’m not going to make the star apron and collar; instead I will make a belt and choker by my own design. I’m keeping the star fascinator, though.

I’m making the skirt simpler too, more in style with this one:




Then there are the sleeves. I’m not altogether enamored with either of the clover and star sleeves as I’m not very keen on puffed sleeves. Looking though a lot of pictures on Anna Held there are sleeve variations- I really like the version above with straps that fall down on the arm, but the most common seem to be a simple strap.







There are other versions too and I like them too. A simple shoulder straps would be very simple, but perhaps I should do something more fancy.









I think Anna Held was a very attractive woman!