A very historical birthday picnic

Now I daresay this is the post in the 'chemise a la reine saga' that I've been most excited for.
The picnic was lovely, we had an overabundance of food and everyone made a real effort with their costumes. I spent most of the day marveling at how great my friends are and how much I love them. Okay, soppy stuff out of the way... We had lots of people oggling at us and many tourists took photos which was fun at first but after a while it got a little tiring, especially because very few of them asked permission. It was pretty entertaining to see how creative people got though (shout out to all the people that took fake selfies with us eating in the background).

Taken by my friend Maddy or Frida Khalo as she was that day.

We picnicked at the Royal Naval Colleges in Greenwich and I spent a fair amount of time wandering around the area collecting my friends so I got to listen in to lots of the muggle's (non costumed people) comments about my attire. A few people reconginsed who I was, something I was quite surprised about but the prize has to go to the six year old boy that turned around and remarked to his parents 'Look, pretty Georgians! I wonder why they aren't fainting?'. You go kid, you go.

Towards the end of the day my friend Bel took some photos of a few of us and they're suitably ridiculous but also suitably gorgeous (she is a wonder with a camera and more of her excellent photographs can be found on her facebook page Uskglass Cosplay) and so here they are, the more serious ones first so that I can tell you about my costume. 

Underneath my robe en chemise I wore a linen chemise, striped knit cotton stockings from Nehelenia Patterns, a bumroll (but not the very pronounced one I made for university) stuffed with rags, a cotton walking length petticoat and an organza walking length petticoat. I skipped out on stays because I hadn't finished a pair yet (I wouldn't have worn them anyway, I wanted to be really comfy) and my American Duchess Kensingtons. You know about the hat, wig and dress, the sash was a last minute edition and it's just made from very badly hemmed poly organza (read: I hate it but it did the job).

Check out that fun sunburn. That comes from lying in a field
for days on end reading 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell'
whilst wearing my glass.

My friend Arthur came as Charles II and we had a joke about us being party monarchs. This spawned the photo you see above and also the following ones, perhaps some of the best pictures I've ever had the privilege to be in.

Top row: my sister as Anne Bonny, Emilia as Marie Laveau
Middle row: Hannah as Jane Austen, Arthur as Charles II
Bottom row: me as Marie Antoinette
Don't ask me why the Pimms bottle is there, no one knew.

And an even less serious photo.

I think theme parties are the way forward, this was so much fun and my friends are a bunch of very imaginative people. Besides the guys that you've already seen we had Van Gogh, Sir Isaac Newton, Salai, Da Vinci, Rosy the Riveter, Oscar Wilde, a musketeer and Frida Khalo.
I went home very happy and very eager to make and wear more 18th century clothes, I felt so pretty and comfortable all day.

My next few posts will chronicle my progress with my 18th century stays, I'm at roughly the halfway point with them so I thought I'd better catch up on some progress posts.