5th Annual Francaise Dinner

Whew, well, the 5th Annual Francaise Dinner has come and gone (last weekend) and by all accounts it was another success! Thanks so much to my fellow co-hostesses, Maggie and Gloria!

Initial group picture by Beth of BWPW photography with edits by Gloria:

Group picture at 5th Annual Francaise Dinner

We had 33 people this year and again rented a private room in historic Gadsby's Tavern for this event: everyone brought their A game and looked fantastic! We had so many beautiful dresses, new and not new, including lovely ladies from the Fabulousity Club and also quite a few new faces! The food was delicious and the company such fun. I spent much of the evening fulfilling hostess duties and doing some vending towards the end (it's always so rewarding to share my love of 18th/19th century muffs and tea!), which was fun but meant that I didn't get to talk to everyone as much as I wanted to. I had such a wonderful time still though!

Here's a pic of my outfit (courtesy Maggie).

What I'm wearing: my Red & white striped silk Robe a la Anglaise, cranberry faux silk petticoat, dupioni cream silk under petticoat over pocket hoops, red 'Kensington's shoes from American Duchess, hair by me, clear rhinestone earrings & black fan from InTheLongRun Designs, necklace from Charming Charlie's and black sparkly eye swirls, courtesy scrapbooking supplies from Michaels! I wore by black silk mourning cape for warmth on the way in, with black vintage gloves.

My striped Robe a la Francaise is still in a pile of cut silk with my pink lining together (work has been intense lately), so I opted to re-wear my red & white striped silk Robe a la Anglaise, worn for the first time over pocket hoops with a cranberry faux silk petticoat and a golden silk sash.

I built big hair for the evening using various hair pieces, but not ahead of time on a wig/half wig, I did my hair 2 hours before the event: first I left down a good portion of my front hair and put the rest up in a tight bun up high on the top of my head towards the back. Then I pinned on top a half wig with clips removed folded in half to create height. After that I teased my front hair and pinned it up over the half wig. Then I added two more hair pieces to add small braids, a little curl and some more body/height. Finished it off with a few feathers, a lovely bee pin from a friend (a thank you hostess gift from Angela the evening before: thank you, I love, love it!!!) and a few little faux flower stickers and voila!

I also finally got buttons and buttonholes on my honey's waistcoat, with machine buttonhole help from my mom on 90% of the buttonholes (thanks Mom! we missed you at the dinner this year, but maybe next year?!). My honey wore his late 18th century blue jacket, blue waistcoat, blue pants (recently bought in Williamsburg) and red clocked stockings, with black shoes and black wool tricorn. He looked great! (Photo below of my honey and I, courtesy kaesha_nikovana)

My honey and I

I took very few pictures, just a few general shots of the room, but seriously everyone looked so fantastic! It was awesome to meet a few of you I've not met before in person (Beth, Bethany), and also find a new friend to recommend to LJ so there is no need to costume alone (Ashley)...Oh wow, Angela, you & Bethany looked FANTASTIC, and just getting to spend some time with friends, new and old, was wonderful. Isabella, it was great to meet your sister-in-law, and wow, such fun evening!

There was delicious food, wonderful company, a fun raffle to raise money for future Francaise Dinners, and even vending by TheLadyDetalle on Etsy, Bulldog & Baum, and InTheLongRun Designs. (Photo courtesy kaesha_nikovana)

TheLadyDetalle on Etsy vending at 5th Francaise Dinner

Everyone looked fabulous! Seriously amazing, there were so many beautiful and amazing and gorgeous dresses to look at, it was really fun to admire all the lovelies!!! 

It was a wonderful evening, both my honey and I were pretty exhausted though, so while I really enjoyed the evening, was happy to have a quiet day on Sunday to recover. Thanks again to my co-hostesses, to our husbands for their huge help and support, to Beth for coming and taking fabulous photos again, to everyone who came, wore dresses new or old, looked fabulous and make this event possible, and to the founders of this event, Kat and Judy, who made all this possible in the first place: we missed you this year, but hey, we know 'life' happens and hopefully next year. Next year the three of us are stepping back to let others take a turn at hosting, so the location and venue are likely to change again, but a huge big THANK YOU to all our attendees, who make this event worthwhile! 

18th century Robe a la Francaise - progress

My latest project is to finally tackle a style of gown from the 18th century that I haven't attempted yet: a Francaise gown or Robe a la Francaise. I'm super excited about this project because it's been a long time coming.

My fabric is a lovely smooth striped brown with pink and yellow striped silk (leftover scraps that I'll use for trim pictured above) that I picked up in the L.A. Fashion District a few years ago: $8 a yard bolt end, and I have 7 1/2 yards. My mom also picked up another 3+ yard piece of the same fabric from another source around the same time, so we swapped fabrics (she scored an 8 yard piece of a lovely burgundy striped silk from me in exchange) so I would have enough to SQUEEZE out a Francaise! Ideally for this type of gown with a matching petticoat and self trim, you want 14-15 yards of 54-60 wide fabric if you're around my height. I have 10 1/2 yards of 54 wide, so a matching petticoat is out (instead I'm making a coordinating one out of gold silk taffeta) and my self trim will be franken-stiened together: we'll see how crazy this drives me!

I'm lining this in a bright coral pink linen I got from puresilks ages ago. So far the dress is all cut out, and I've sewn all the lining together, minus setting the lining sleeves. I was so hoping to get this done in time for the 5th Annual Francaise Dinner last weekend, but work/life got in the way, so instead I'm hoping to get it done by CC! But I definitely lost some steam since the planned event just happened last weekend and now I won't need this until end of July. So I may work on some other inspiring projects in the meantime, we'll see.

4th Annual Francaise Dinner

We had a wonderful time! My blog post is quite a bit late, but I still wanted to post about the 4th Annual Francaise Dinner on March 28, 2015!

Gloria, of In The Long Run Designs, and Maggie, of Maggie's Costume Wardrobe, and I were the hostesses this year, our first time planning this wonderful and fun event! Our friends Kat, of Madam Modiste, and Judy, of Learning to Costume, founded this event and took turns hosting the first three years, and this year we took a turn! We decided to bring the late 18th century costumed dinner to Alexandria, VA to historic Gadsby's Tavern Restaurant this year, which turned about to be a great venue: they were so accommodating, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was great: we had some fun in all our big poufy dresses getting around the room, but it was a wonderful venue!

Photos by BWPW Photography:

TheLadyDetalle and HB 4th Annual Francaise Dinner

Don't they look lovely!

A few of us met for dinner on Friday night in Alexandria, which turned out to be a blast, and much delicious yet pricey food was consumed!

On to the actual event: I re-wore my trusty Chemise a la Reina, which looks white but is actually dyed very very light pink: I wore a lovely necklace and bracelets from In the long run designs, and some lovely white paper roses in my hair from dames a la mode! I have some seriously lovely silk just waiting for me to make an 18th century Robe a la Francaise, but with all the time it took to plan & host this event, plus life stuff, plus I needed to finish trimming my HB's jacket, my dreams of making a dress for this year's event had to go on hold another year. *sigh* maybe next year!

Everyone seemed to have a lovely time, the food was delicious, the raffle went well, we had raffle donations from quite a few folks, and had some lovely goodie bags for our guests to take home as well, including some lovely custom 'Francaise Dinner 2015' mirrors from American Duchess!!
The evening went by so quickly, but I had a great time, and spent much of the evening just trying to make the rounds and greet all our lovely guests!

Group photo by BWPW Photography & meykeyll (InTheLongRun)

InTheLongRun


I took very few photos, but the ones I did take are here: 

Hope you can join in for The 5th Annual Francaise Dinner in early 2016!!