Titanic Dress

Right at the end of December, I was invited to join a couple of ladies for tea at a local tearoom.  There was no specific plan for costumes, but I figured it would be a great reason to dress up and the perfect excuse to pull out a dress I never get to wear.  I first made this dress for a picnic commemorating the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic at the Titanic memorial in Washington DC.  The dress is the Laughing Moon #104 modified to be front closing.  Since I lived all alone in DC, I need to be able to dress all by myself and the back closing on this dress would have been impossible.  I have made some improvements since the first wearing, but here is the first time I wore the dress.

First off, the picnic was the first time wearing this hat and actually the first hat I ever blocked myself.  The instructor did not think this hat needed wiring, however, after even this first wearing the hat dropped into my vision continuously.  It was so aggravating to wear this hat!  So I took the outer ribbon off and added wire underneath. 

Secondly, I did not have any of the correct undergarments.  I have since made a corset and chemise to wear with this dress.  I have not worn any of this stuff since I made the undergarments and fixed the hat, so I was so excited to wear it all out to tea. Here are some pictures of the whole outfit ready to head out to tea time!
 

The whole outfit feels much better with the modifications.  Here is a close up to show some of the details of the lovely peacock lace I found to use for the details on the dress.

 The accessories I am wearing are leather gloves from a thrift store, Gibson shoes from American Duchess and the necklace and earrings are from the lovely Taylor at Dames a la Mode.