#goth heels

[sovietits]

just girly things

[borninwinter81]

DIY budget cyber/industrial outfit - first time in public!

I made a couple of previous posts about this dress here and here, as well as the matching collar, and I thought it would be fun to show how I styled it when I wore it for the first time on Friday. Honestly I was a little concerned it would just look dumb, but when I tried it with the full makeup and shoes I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it.

Apologies for the abysmal photo quality, especially in the first image. I don't have a good camera and I wanted to try and show the full outfit. That blurred mirror selfie is the only head to toe picture I got.

I didn't mention in my other posts but in addition to making patches for the dress I also nipped in the seams so it fit me better (it was my size but kinda shapeless, and I wanted to give myself a waist). This is very easy to do with almost any dress, skirt or top, you just put the garment on inside out, pinch in the side seams so they fit the contours of your body (try and do this equally on both sides) and pin them together. Safety pins are best so you don't accidentally hurt yourself.

Take the garment off and draw a smooth line with tailors chalk connecting all the pins, then sew along that line, either with a machine or by hand. Turn right side out and try it on again. Provided you're happy with the fit, trim away the excess fabric. You may need to be careful if it's a fabric that could fray - I usually go over the seams again with a zig-zag machine stitch to try and minimise this. There are also products you can buy like fray-check. If in doubt, or there isn't much excess fabric you could just leave the seams untrimmed.

The length is a little out of my comfort zone so I wore gym shorts underneath to help myself feel less exposed and reduce the risk of flashing - I tend to do this with any dress or skirt that's above the knee anyway.

Continuing the budget theme, rather than buying any new accessories (again, cyber stuff is mega expensive) I looked through my wardrobe for items I already had that might work.

These goggles are not the usual kind of cyber goggles, but they matched everything else I was wearing. I was given them by a friend who was getting rid of them ages ago so they cost me nothing!

I really didn't feel like making and wearing cyberlox, so instead I just got some yellow hair elastics and did a ponytail.

I made these arm warmers about 12 years ago. You can probably tell that they began life as a pair of skinny jeans. To cut down on the amount of sewing I needed to do I used the existing hem and seams. After cutting them to a length I liked I did the pinch and pin thing to make them fit to my arm, and put in zips along the outer seam to make them easier to put on. As it turned out this wasn't necessary because the fabric is stretchy enough that I can pull them on and off. The zips add a nice bit of visual interest though.

I ripped a hole in each one for my thumb, and I had a pack of extra large hook-and-eyes, so I sewed the "eye" parts down them and added some old bootlaces. I've never been 100% happy with this decoration, but I haven't had any inspiration on how to change them in the last 12 years.

I wanted a necklace in addition to the collar, and couldn't think of anything more appropriate than this. I originally got it for a cosplay, Vasquez from Aliens, and with the big yellow industrial loader from the end of that movie which Ripley uses to fight the Queen alien... it seemed there was kind of a connection there.

I once met Jeanette Goldstein whilst dressed as Vasquez and told her she was my childhood hero and she signed these tags, but unfortunately most of the signature has come off when I was cleaning them.

Lastly, the boots. As with any goth outfit the footwear tend to be the most expensive, particularly if you want ridiculous platform heels like these.

When it comes to footwear, I really would not recommend any alternative brand names like Killstar, Koi or similar. They're often terrible quality, the heels will snap, the soles will peel off, zips will break. In my opinion the only decent specifically alternative shoe brand are New Rock (even they're lower quality than they used to be in the 90s) and although New Rock do make heels I wouldn't wear them often enough to justify spending £200 on a pair. I prefer flats the majority of the time!

The brand of these is Funtasma, and I believe they are intended for use by pole-dancers, meaning they're decent quality and will be up to a night of dancing in a club. I took a change of shoes along with me to put on at the end of the evening but they are surprisingly comfortable for the first few hours.

I got them about 15 years ago on sale, and at that time they were around £40. Not cheap but not super expensive either, and I've definitely got my money's worth out of them. I had them re-soled once with special toughened soles that have extra grip so they're safer to walk in, but that's it. One time I even did the 3 mile walk home at 2am in 6 inches of snow wearing these because I didn't want to wait hours for a taxi (an occasion where I did not take a change of shoes!)

So, not your standard cyber outfit, but one that gives my own spin on this look (which should be the goal with any fashion style - a guideline to create something unique, not a rulebook that you have to follow 100%) and was put together super cheaply. The only new things I bought were the dress, fabric to make the patches, and a pack of multicoloured hair elastics.

[ladybluefox666]

[prettypretender]

[ladybluefox666]

credit to @beatrizgarbelini for @houseofwidow

[ladybluefox666]