Casual Cosplay: An outfit inspired by Emmy Altava from the Professor Layton games

To celebrate the recent release of the final Professor Layton game I though I would do a Screen Dresscapade based on one of my favourite characters in the game Emmy Altava.

If you've never played a Professor Layton game, I would highly recommend it, they keep your brain active and are great fun in a way that Brain Training never was. The general gist revolves around solving a mystery that usually has more twists and turns than a Christmas special of Jonathan Creek and along the way you solve lots of puzzles. More importantly however, the games are incredibly stylish looking with a distinct retro vibe that takes inspiration from the 1890s-now. And lets be honest any game that features a perfect gentleman in a top hat HAS to be a winner!

Out sleuths on the case...

In case you hadn't guessed, Emmy is the one in the yellow coat. This isn't a cosplay post, so I havent' gone to town on the look, but I went for an 'inspired by' look instead. 

Instead of a yellow coat, I have a vintage yellow dress that was told was from the late 1950s when I bought it. Judging by the quality of the fabric and the cut, not to mention a beautiful lace detail on the back I am inclined to believe that its a fairly accurate date. I did however wear white tights under the dress and I wore a pair of riding style boots from Clarks. I wore a little blouse under the dress and I meant to add a pink ribbon to the neck line but didn't manage to find one in time :(

Anywho, here's the look:

This is one of my favourite dresses at the moment, it is a lovely yellow to help brighten up the cold weather and it fits like a dream! Here is a picture of me admiring the dress while wearing it... you get a pretty good view of the top of my head, which clearly is why you're all here.

Mind you, it would not be Layton without a bit of pointing. Everyone points in Professor Layton. All the time.

I've got it Professor! 

I wore a black coat with this outfit. I sometimes worry that the combination of black and yellow makes one look a bit like a bee, but I think as long as you don't wear stripes its probably okay.

I wore this whole outfit for a trip out to Battle Abbey. It was a beautifully clear day although very cold, but I had to snap a picture of the Abbey. Just look at that sky!

I also stopped off for a cup of tea at M&S. That isn't really an event in itself, but I wanted to share the tiny, tiny christmas tree biscuit! Its so cute!

Thats it for today then.

Have you played any stylish video games?

Casual Cosplay: Ugly Betty's Betty Suarez

I get ready for work between around 6:40 and 8:00 depending on what time I catch my train to work. Now at 7:10, E4 has been showing re-runs of Ugly Betty. This is a show I watched a lot of back when it was originally aired but it is a show I still like to watch today. I think it has a lovely level of silly fluff mixed with real life serious dilemmas (okay, perhaps more fluff than the other stuff but anyway) and I always find it cheers me up.

I had a bit of a weird Betty style crush back in 2006 and I think that's because I'm such a fan of a good ol' print dress and cardigan combo although I have to admit I think Betty occasionally over-did the frump a tad but I thought it had a great look about it. Although to be honest this isn't really surprising since costume designer Patricia Field was responsible for the shows look, and heck that mismatched print thing is pretty typical of Carrie in Sex and the City too.

So naturally when one morning last week I woke up with giant frizzy hair from sleeping in plaits I thought, Hey! You know who has this hair? Betty Suarez. So I decided to attempt a days survival in an outfit inspired by Ugly Betty herself. 

As I've said before Betty's look is a mix of clashing colours and prints AND textures...

Source

Here's my look inspired by Betty. I perhaps kept it a bit too toned down, perhaps that dress as a blouse with a stripy skirt would have nailed it a bit more, but I think you get the idea. I did need to go out in this outfit and I didn't want to scare the people of Tunbridge Wells I thought the frizz festival of hair was scary enough.

For a sort of outside look I decided to team the same dress with a blazer, as inspired by this picture (note the giant hair also!):

Source

I have a sort of grey/browny blazer that came from next via a charity shop that I wore, since I thought adding another colour clash could only help the situation, but I think it actually ended up matching quite well :S Obviously carrying a file as Betty is a hard working assistant!

Dress: French, via eBay £4

Tights: £3 Primark (they do the best tights!)

Cardigan: £8 M&S via eBay

Blazer: £6 Next via charity shop

Belt: £1 charity shop

Scarf: Free, Beyond Retro

Then there was the face...

Poor Betty, her grinning face was plastered everywhere as part of the marketing for the show. Now I'm doing the same, only I don't have a show :(

Here's my Betty inspired face. Excuse the braces, I tried using an app but it worked so badly this is the best I could come up with, but you get the idea... The glasses are my husbands, and they are BROKEN (see the Harry Potter style tape holding them together?) and I wasted at least one use of my Mac brow setter getting my eyebrows to stick up like that. But anywho, its all just a bit of fun. I would recommend Betty as a Halloween costume though as its pretty inexpensive to cobble a look like this together with some charity shop trawling!

Did you like Ugly Betty's style? Or did you think it was just, well, ugly?

Casual Cosplay: Cath Kidston tea dress and an outfit inspired by The Edge of Love

Taking a little break from cosplay today with an outfit post inspired by one of my favourite films - from a purely costume and style point of view.

With a day off at the weekend and some unexpectedly nice weather I decided to take the chance to relax in a nice tea dress and a cosey jumper. The style I was aiming for was something similar to the seaside and country scenes from the film The Edge of Love starring Sienna Miller a s Keira Knightley. Set in the 1940s, it is the story of poet Dylan Thomas and his mixed up love life with his friend and his wife. As a film it is okay, but some if the outfits are simply gorgeous - there are pencil skirts, beautiful dresses and casual tea dresses.

My favourite look from the film is the chunky cardigan-tea dress-welly boots combo the ladies wear at the beach. You could have probably worked this out for yourself if you've seen my blog before. In general I am a big fan of the floral tea dress but these days it is tough to get a good reproduction in a vintage print. There is also the problem with skirt length, skirts are shorter these days and a super-mini tea dress like those worn in the 1990s (I'm thinking of Shannon Doherty's character in  Mallrats...) and they just don't suit my legs.

My tea dress was a rather good find on eBay (as always) and was made by Cath Kidston. Lucky me managed to win the dress for the fairly £15!

The jumper is a from the Republic closing down sale and cost £10 a d it feels pretty luxurious and I simply loved the burgundy shade I thought it was perfect in colour!!!

Finally the dress was coupled with a pair of blue tights and cherry Doc Marten's. The docs are amazing as they have a fleece lining that is lovely and warm!

So that's it for today, do you know anywhere that sells really good tea dresses?

Cosplay Inspirations: Beetlejuice

Something a little bit different again today. I am trying to schedule more regular posts and come up with a few regular features- this is one of them :D

Movie Dresscapades, a.k.a. movies you should watch if only for fancy dress/cosplay inspiration or fantastic and visually stunning costuming.

This month its Halloween (in case you’ve not realised) so I decided to pick something themely.

Screen Dresscapades: Beetlejuice

Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice is a movie that I have watched on a fairly regular basis since I was very young (probably a little too young if I’m honest- but that’s what you get when you have a Dad that likes that kind of thing and a Mum that occasionally worked night shift on a Friday). It has a very odd mix of comedy, horror, sexual innuendo and bizarre visuals that over the years Tim Burton has become known for.

The plot premise is simple- a couple, Adam and Barbra, move into their small town dream house, accidentally die before they ever get to really live in it and are doomed to spend the rest of their lives haunting the dwelling- so far so good...ish. What complicates the matter is when the ‘outrageous’ designer Delia, her husband Charles and their daughter Lydia move into the house and start to make some changes. The couple then hire Beetlejuice, a striped suit clad spectre, to help them haunt the family away.

Big hair + big clothes = 80s

Beetlejuice himself is played by Michael Keaton, in his best role (in my opinion), he is a wonderful mix of crude troublemaker and sarcastic guide to the couple and Keaton gives a good physical, as well as verbal performance and is on cue with the laughs throughout.

Don't forget to wear your smile

Spooky yet stylish

Although Keaton’s look is a bit gouhlish, it is very iconic- meaning it is easy to get the look with minimal effort. The key is to be able to find the stripy suit (there are some inexpensive options on eBay), once you have that some white facepaint, eyemakeup and hairgel is all you really need to complete the look.

Another great look in this film is that of Lydia (played by Winona Ryder) the 80s goth inspired look is great to emulate, with the pale face, black clothes, giant hat and of course, a camera! Lydia has the great bonus of the red wedding dress from

the final scenes of the movie too.

Gothic-Lolita Chic

 The costume inspiration doesn’t end there either, there’s the huge hair and 80s dresses of Geena Davis, the plaid shirt stylings of Alec Baldwin, the hoard of dead football players among many others!

Of course you can always just go with the Sandworm… but I have no idea how you’d go about that- some kind of sock puppet I’d expect. Check out this one in particular!

In fact, this film has so much fodder for fancy dress that one of my favourite Brighton based fancy dress events Trailer Trash opened its doors at the Komedia with a cabaret club night based on this very film. (On a side note Trailer Trash is one of my favourite excuses to dress up, as anyone who has read any Fancy Dresscapades will be able to tell, and they have had many events each with a cult movie theme).

Costume Gem

My favourite possible costume in this movie is that of the dead-receptionist-beauty-queen. She wears a bright red dress, with orangy-red hair and has magnificent green skin! Quite the challenge for any fancy dresser!

I  wonder if the green skin was what got her noticed in that beauty pagent?

 Trailer Trash organiser and arial artiste Miss Kitty Peels pulled off this look with ease at the event in March 2009- check her out here! All I can say is that when it comes to being a girls best friend, body paint is right up there with diamonds…

Final Verdict

On a final note, although it’s a bit of a weird film, Beetlejuice is actually a very entertaining movie, and it’s filled with fancy dress fodder- definitely a good choice for any up-and-coming dresscapade.

So that’s it for now then.

Hopefully after a few more posts I’ll have quite a little catalogue for inspiration.

Happy Dresscapades!