mandie_rw | 1790s Portraits

Had the 1790s shoot with Michele yesterday (it was originally scheduled for last week, but she gave me the option to push it back a week if I wanted, and since Tom had the plague last week plus that relieved me of extra-frantic last-minute sewing, we agreed to do it this week instead). And it was fun! At least, as fun as it is to be a photography subject, which is not the most fun in the entire world, IMO. Lots of sitting very still and making minute adjustments to one's pose. But I love Michele's work, and am very flattered that she wanted to include me in the portrait series enough to do it gratis.

And I did finish everything I wanted to; take that, executive dysfunction!

The Anna Romana Wright dressing gown is pretty fucked on the inside LOL...it was very late in the game when I realized the red lining and yellow top fabric were not actually the same width, which made things difficult to match up. In my defense they're both taffetas from Silk Baron, so why the hell wouldn't they be the same width?! So I never actually measured the width of either of them. Rude. So there are random gaps in the lining where it wasn't as wide as the yellow silk, and it's just tacked in a bunch of places, but it was perfectly functional for a shoot. I want to figure out ties or bows or something for actual wear, but as the portrait didn't have any fastenings, I wasn't going to bother with those before the shoot. It's also not a shade of yellow I would EVER have bought for a dress on my own, without portrait inspiration...but I bought swatches and tested them in actual candlelight and that was the obvious winner.

So here we are with a mustard-and-ketchup dressing gown. xD And you know what, I actually really like it. It feels like a very 18thc color!

The working-class outfit was finished a while back, so thankfully no last-minute sewing needed there. I felt like the cap was treading the fine line between "amusingly derpy" and "just stupid" but I suppose it works as part of the outfit! I do need to en-biggen the jacket sleeves though. I thought they were just-this-side-of-big-enough when I reworked the jacket, but my shift sleeves got wedged up in there when I was trying to get it on and I got very sweaty and sausage-arm-y trying to get them pulled down, so clearly there's a little more space needed! Will probably wear some variant of this outfit to the Georgian Picnic in May, so should really add a piece to the sleeves before then, as I definitely won't be able to get that jacket on in the parking lot or easily drive in those sleeves. xD

I took a couple of mirror shots for lolz and posted them on Insta here - so you can get the full mustard-and-ketchup effect!

And Michele has posted a couple of shots so far: the working class and the Anna Romana Wright portrait, and I think they're absolutely beautiful! I'm so glad we came up with the idea of playing with the chiaroscuro lighting effect, because even the raw photos of the candlelight shots looked so neat yesterday, and I can't wait to see the rest of them.