Purchased for and debuted at the 2019 Big River Steampunk Festival. As with the previous entry, the original photos were lost in a memory card failure.

This is one of those rare occasions I’m wearing an ensemble made entirely of purchased clothing. I spotted the dress on the first day of the 2018 festival, nearly fell over when I saw the price (far, far less than I would have expected), and spent the rest of the afternoon pretending I didn’t already know I was going back for it and looking around was just a formality to make sure I wasn’t going to find anything I liked better.

There are actually three pieces to it – a jacket, an underskirt, and a ruffled overskirt with hidden ties for bustling up. I love the jacket but not the way it looks on me, so you’ll have to click through to the end to see it. It appears to be a mass-produced item by The Pirate Dressing, but I’m not able to find a direct wensite. only resellers. The booth I purchased it from was more a steampunk secondhand shop than even a reseller outlet, though, so who knows what kind of adventures it went on before it got to me.

The corset is from a company called Timeless Trends. I knew I needed a black corset to really set the dress off properly, but I was concerned about whether I’d be able to snag one at the festival itself, so I went on a quest to track down some of the merchants who’ve been here previously and find out if they’d be here again. I ended up in contact with someone who wasn’t planning to attend in 2019, but was planning to get out of the corset side of their business and could sell me a clearance item with time to spare. When it got here, I discovered from the tag inside that they were a reseller, too! Not a big deal, because now I’ve got a source for good quality, reasonably-priced corsets, but I probably would have ended up paying a little less for this one if I’d bought it directly from TT in the first place.

This particular model is black leather, in their regular length Slim Silhouette. It’s buttery-soft and seems to fit much better than some of my older corsets from other retailers, even taking into account that some of the older corstes are now too small – I’m talking about when I first got them and they should have fit like TT’s does. I also didn’t bend the busk the first time I put it on (happened with one of the other corsets), and the busk isn’t putting a hole in the fabric/leather (happened with…yeeeah).

Beyond that, the accessories are pretty much my standard BRSF gear. The shirt came from a local secondhand shop, and the tiny hat was a gift from the person who sold me the dress – I was wavering on it because I really didn’t feel like I could spend anything else, and she said, “You know what, it looks so good with it, just take it!” So thank you, nice pirate lady. =D The photos, meanwhile, were taken at one of the small bridges over Bear Creek, slightly down the road from the festival itself – it’s always hard to find good locations on site that aren’t crowded with other attendees, which is why we usually go elsewhere for the showcase shots.

Coming up: One more variation, and one more Instagram embed! >.<