The fat fairy comes to life

I’m finally done with my Halloween costume! About time given that the party is tomorrow. I’m on my way to Claus’ –the venue of it – to help him decorate and cook, but before, I wanted to show you the pics.

So, I want to be an Absinth fairy – a Victorian/Art Nouveau one, mind you! With a BMI close to 28, I’m nowhere near fairy-like, but I found this lovely picture from when absinth was booming and Toulouse Lautrec was having “the green fairy”-hallucinations along with the rest of the bunch. Now THAT’S more my body type and so, I’m in!

This is one of many drawings I made in order to figure out how to design the outfit. In the end it came pretty close, although I chose to lose the layer of black lace and go more for green.

When Vinni was there to create her Corpse Bride costume, I managed to sow the basics of mine, create the bare wings and do the headpiece (which I’m working at here). That’s made of a dry cleaners hanger (like the wings, which was a hassle: the metal was far too hard/brittle to be shaped, so I had to anneal it in my workshop to make it soft enough to work with), black fabric orchids (la fleur du mal – the flower of insanity) and lots of glass beads. Gaffa tape to hold it together –less charming, but efficient ;-)

I also got started on the belt, which is quite complicated, since it’s sown like a corset: It consists of two layers of sturdy, yet somewhat elastic cotton and is boned on the inside for every 5 cm. The outside I embroidered, partly with my normal sewing machine, partly with glass beads in a non-symmetrical art nouveau pattern. It took forever, but came out pretty nice. I did the pearl work when Vinni and I visited our friend Michael for a sumptuous dinner and to see Twilight as a prequel to seeing new moon in November.

Again I paired happy social life with equally happy creative tinkering when I visited Susi yesterday, because I decorated the wings on her dining table (I don’t think it got any stains, though quite a bit of green glitter, I’m afraid)

And today I finished all the small details off, put the wings together, made the “sleeves” and attached them and took a photo of it all.

And this is the entire outfit, minus make-up, black panty hoses and long, high-heeled boots. You’ll have to imagine those or hope that someone takes pictures tomorrow.

I hope you’ve had as much fun creating your costume or at least will have tons of fun partying tomorrow. Happy Halloween!