Dressing up the new year
(Dressing up with Ellie: Carlisle, UK)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
This is the first post of 2011 and the 448th post on world meets rosie. I saw in the new year at a select gathering at my mum’s place in Carlisle. The theme of the evening was fancy dress, but no ordinary fancy dress; the fanciest dress we owned. In preparation for this event, my mother and I set up this dressing screen, festooned in scarves, masks and other accessories in order to take photographs. In the end, everyone present had a turn in the spotlight, creating some sights wondrous and others frightful.
Last night we were encouraged to wear whatever items we never managed to wear ordinarily. For instance, Ellie (on the left) is clad in a deep blue trouser suit made entirely of suede – I am wearing her winged jacket rakishly. On Ellie, unfortunately only the trousers are visible under a handsome dressing gown. As you can see, we were also persuaded to enhance our costumes with more items from the dressing screen, in Ellie’s case, the paisley nightgown. I am sporting a long gown in beads and sequins. It is a sort of Ancient Egyptian meets 1920s meets Las Vegas inspired dress with enormous shoulder pads and beads on every side. It is actually extremely heavy to wear, but hangs beautifully with the weight of the decoration. I have had the dress for a year or so, but (unsurprisingly) never found an opportunity to wear it. Last night was the perfect occasion for such richly decorated garb. Hope you’re having a smashing start to the new year – and I am sure more images of the night will follow…
– Today Rosie is tucking into an enormous ham with family in Carlisle, UK –
[...] like a mature Liza Minelli. Not favourable. The dress itself rarely has an outing (in fact, the first and last time was almost a year ago) owing to its flagrant stylistic overkill, outrageous shoulder pads and its exhausting [...]