Karl and I were honored to have been invited as secondary sponsors to our friends Carljoe and Luna's wedding. As usual, my first concern was the dress code. We were told it was a semi-formal affair, with a red, black and white theme. The challenge was that it was to be held at a church with very tight restrictions on attire: no strapless dresses, spaghetti straps, plunging necklines, low backs or abbreviated hems. They were not afraid to make you "shawl it".
Well, what was I going to do? My sisters and I had a trove of black dresses, but all were revealing. A new one was in order, and luckily I had red fabric in stock. (This was actually supposed to become the Cersei gown in the tail end of my advanced sewing course.)
So I decided to make a gown specific to the requirements of the parish. It was inspired in part by a red carpet look of Lauren Lapkus, and in part by an old Louis Vuitton collection:
Of course I couldn't make the neckline as low as the LV frock, but I decided to nick the look of the front busk by using hook-and-eye tape at center back instead of an invisible zipper:
One of my apprehensions was that hook closures rely on tension to stay put, and the gored skirt would not provide that snug fit. I still went with the gamble, though, and paid for it with no less than three incidents of partially coming undone. I'm going to have to replace this with covered buttons to keep this piece in rotation.
The secret pockets were a hit. One of the problems of modern times is carrying all essentials in a tiny evening bag, but I was able to circumvent that by customizing my pockets to my smartphone. Bonus: my glasses also fit.
For a final flourish, I decided to make my straps trail behind me in a faux bow.
Aaand, since I ended up with such a traditional look, I decided to play it up with jewelry inspired by the Tudors - Catherine of Aragon and Lady Mary in particular. After all, Catholic fervor is what practically birthed this gown. Might as well go all out. Did I fool you?
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