In the Beginning (the dress)...

As I've mentioned before, I've been sketching out dress designs for months.

The first one I created, in the previous post is still my mother's favorite.

More recently, I took a picture of myself and have been photoshopping drawings on top of the image to see what the dress would actually look like on me, which I think has been pretty successful so far. For example, I figured out that the dress in the previous image makes my arms look huge because of how I have the sleeves. So I've fiddled around with different layers of different sleeves - from poofy to strappy.

The Steampunk influences in the dress involve it being a more modern victorian dress, which makes it a lot more sexy than the modest outfits they wore in the 19th century. Also, several decorative devices (the gear design motif, a fancy metal waist decoration of some kind, etc...) bring the steampunk theme more into fruition.

It's hard for me to stay away from French Victorian or Elizabethan design, however. Which, while they might work with steampunk, they would probably end up looking more like a fancy Ren Fair costume rather than a wedding dress. Which, by the way, to call the dress I'm going to wear a "costume" offends me, so please, don't do it.

Mallory, Myra, Sam, and I are going dress-looking today. I'm thinking we're only going to stop at Wendy's Bridal and David's Bridal in Florence. We're just looking and maybe trying on things, very informal visit. Hopefully we don't do too much dress-up, haha. The first dress will be a genuine "we're interested in seeing how this looks" and the rest will be "let's make her wear that!" :-)