Look Behind the Facade

 Last year I was excited to be in the ensemble for a local production of Jekyll & Hyde. I have to say, I completely fell in love with the music - especially the ensemble pieces. I'm not surprised. I believe it's by the same gentleman who did Bonnie & Clyde, which is one of my favorite musicals. 

However, even though there was a lot to celebrate about this particular production, there was something I fell even harder for than the music.

This fucking skirt. 

I didn't mention it back when I first started blogging, but I actually was (at one point in the early 2000s) a theater major and I've been in a lot of costumes in my life, but none of them have made me feel as good as swishing around in this purple skirt. If I could, I'd have bought it from the theater company that owned it. It cinched me in my favorite places, skimmed over my least favorite places, and the DRAMA of it was just so stunning. 

So I just had to try and make one. 

Does anyone else hate new Blogger with an unmitigated passion? Oh, just me? I mean, I've uploaded these pictures 5 times and they're blurry every time but I've done nothing different from any other blog post. Just me, then? (UPDATE: I re-uploaded using my phone this time. They're not perfect but they'll do.) 

So I don't dislike this skirt. In fact, I really love it. The pink denim is from a secondhand store called Scrap B-more in Baltimore that's like a thrift store but only for arts/crafts supplies. I love to wear it with this snake and skull top I got from a different thrift store (originally Torrid) and I'm wearing my 20's inspired Redwing shoes. I'm not sure I'd honestly recommend the shoes. I'm wearing my usual size but they're a little too small but I was required to wear Redwing shoes when I worked at their store for a few months last year. I thought "oh, these would be good audition shoes" and I've had them for a year now and I can't say I love them. If they hadn't been so ungodly expensive I'd probably have donated them already. 

SO anyway, YES. I love this skirt and I'm going to make more. For a first draft, I'm really pleased, although I wish I'd added more volume around the hem (so it's not so pencil-y) and more pleating because the original skirt did have a monstrous level of volume/pleating. But for a first draft? From scratch? That I drew myself? I'm in frickin' love.

I cannot express how enchanted I am with this necklace, by the way. I decided recently that I needed a treat and after weeks of Facebook targeting me with ads for this sneaky baby demon necklace, I nabbed it. It's by Rare Romance, a company I never heard of before, and it looks like a lil baby angel until you look super close and he's actually a baby demon! 

Here's another pic from Jekyll. As you can see, I need to add some volume to the next incarnation of this skirt. I wish I could examine it one more time to see where I need to make the necessary adjustments to the pattern. 

Speaking of cool Victorian garb! I'm going to be in a really neat virtual production with A Taste for Murder. It's called Poems Macabre: The Poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I'm really excited to be in this cast. Everyone is very talented and I've worked with ATFM before and I can honestly say every production they put on is just delightful. I can't wait for live theater to return because we were rehearsing a really fun murder mystery just before the COVID shut down that I'd like to one day perform in. So make sure and grab your tickets to POE so we can keep the show going!

Until next time! xoxo - Meghan