OscarsBal

 

Last night was the so called Oscarsbal, a ball to celebrate the Swedish king Oscar II, or rather his reign and the timeperiod. This took place in Stockholm’s beautiful operahouse, as you will see in all the pictures this is just the most awesome place ever, it’s like stepping in to a movie set or a painting from the period! And some people actually came all the way from Finland to, which is really nice, and the Finnish photographers from Atelieri O. Haapala was there to take beautiful pictures again, here is me and Peter from last year:

 

This dress was a first attempt ever at bustle period, 1880’s, but I think I managed quite well, and we had ONE day to find formal clothing for Peter, it was a real struggle, but success, and it didn’t cost us much at all, not nearly as much as it would have cost us to rent. Why it became like this is because one day before the ball, one of the hosts contacted Peter as a friend and had leftover tickets, that’s why it became such a rush, in the beginning it was only me going. It is my grandfathers shirt, waistcoat, tie and shoes, pants we bought and the tailcoat we borrowed from a friend!

Now this year we were a little bit more prepared, and I knew I would have to do three outfits in the amount of three months. Last year my friend Tove was away studying in Belfast, so she wasn’t able to attend, but this year she didn’t hesitate to attend with me and Peter. She didn’t feel like she would be able to pull of such a dress even though she can sew, and she doesn’t have a sewing machine so I said I could help her, but I ended up sewing the whole thing anyway, it was so much fun!

I worked with mine and hers parallel, and suddenly it was only a week to go.. o lord, Peters uniform! I ended up sitting the last to days, and some of the day of the ball, sewing his (damned) uniform, cause I was so determent that he would come as the tsar of Russia, since the ball had a Russian theme this year, and the hosts was really happy to hear we wanted to go all in like the tsar pair since Peter looks a lot like tsar Nicolaj II, with the beard and all, although he wasn’t tsar in the 1880’s yet. And we managed!

 

As you can see I have pretty much taken all my inspiration from one of the Worth gowns in the Met museum.

The real gown does have a lot more of tulle details, but I who never had worked with that material can only say – never again. I hated it so much, electric and didn’t go where I wanted it to be… so that’s mostly why I skipped those parts. The second thing was the train. The original has a striped train of long strips assembled on the same silknet that is draped over the front, and I did this but didn’t really find it so attractive on my dress, and I felt like it wouldn’t look like that anyway after dancing, walking around in stairs and get trampled upon so I skipped it. But here's how it looks:

I am no Worth, but I think I did quite well anyways, it is after all the most worked on thing I have done, and I think it shows. Usually I don’t copy things because some of the fun is coming up with ideas by yourself in design and so on, even though you often take ideas and inspiration in details you like from different paintings, extant clothing and other people, but this time I wanted to challenge myself, and my perfectionist self with something grand. And I can't say anything is grander than something from Worth...

So, now for Toves dress! She wanted something special, a color she doesn’t normally wear but works now in the 1880’s and not in the 18th century, so we went for this lovely silk in magenta and clear red, which in different lights showed different nuances of sharp pink, and finished of with black details. Normally she is very blue, not sad, the color, and moss green, pale pink and so on when we do 18th century stuff, so now we went for dramatic and sharp!

As for Peter, well, for two and a half days work, I must say I am proud for pulling this of. I’m not satisfied by any means, but we got a lot of compliments and many ladies wanted o dance with “the tsar” and men wondered where one could get a uniform like that, so it was a success even this year even though I didn’t have time to sew the red bands on the pants which he should have had. I used the ball-scene in Anna Karenina, where Sean Bean wears a white uniform as Vronzky to get an idea of how it was built and where the details went and so on, and then also pictures of Nicolaj II. I spent quite some time searching for the right kind of golden trims and then found a little trimshop in Stockholm which helped me a lot, many thanks to them, and our dear friend who gave us some antique goldtrims!

 



 

The kraschan he is wearing, the star broach, is not the correct Russian one, st Stanislaus, this is the st Lazarus order which is Italian I think, but from afar and for someone who doesn’t have that much knowledge in this stuff it is a fabulous looking detail on the uniform. We found this one by chance at an online auction, and it was such a bargain we couldn’t keep our hands off.

 

I think I have babbled on enough for now and I guess you would like o see some pictures, and I took a lot, but i will try to find the best ones, so here goes!

 

My hair before I loosened the curls in the front. The knot is false hair and then I braided my own hair over and around it.

 




 
 

 
 

 

 




 
 

 
 

 

 

 

Some Russian singers who was there to sing some Russian folksongs for the feeling, and they later in the evening started singing the tsar -hymn for Peter, he felt really special and he kept me up quite some time later that night talking about it, they really liked him and wanted lots of pictures with him, so nice!

 

Two of the hosts dancing by, and that dress is just so beautiful, an original piece!

Merja from Before the Automobile in her gorgeous pink natural form dress.

 

 

 

This was a really great ball, and we thank the hosts and all the guests for a wonderful evening!