Bjork World Tour: Grand Finale

In case you are new to the story, here's a little recap:
Last year for our Hollywood Halloween party I made Bjork's Swan Dress, then I tearfully sold it on Etsy, and it was bought by a wonderful young man in the Seattle area named John. John sent me an update after his first round of parties earlier in the month, and then this week sent me some great pics of how he totally rocked this dress:



He absolutely puts me to shame, but I still feel good because the costume looks GORGEOUS! Maybe he should model all of my costume choices?

I should also mention an interesting sidenote: I'd say close to 50% of my blog hits come from people all over the world searching "Bjork Swan Dress." Who knew? I've only seen a handful of other homemade costumes out there, and never run into one in person, so there must just be a lot of window shoppers who never actually realize the Bjork dream. But John did:



Here was his little email note that filled my heart with sunshine:

"I was told by many people at the parties I went to that I had the best costume! Great work! Thanks again Heather!"



I couldn't have hoped for a better buyer, and it has been so fun to see the costume get a whole new life - thanks for the updates John, and for letting me use your pics on my blog! You looked SMASHING!

Bjork World Tour - Costume Update

So you'll remember that I made a fabulous Bjork Swan Dress for our Hollywood Halloween Party last year, and then tearfully sold her on Etsy this fall.

I'm feeling MUCH better about our parting since the buyer is sending me little "updates" on her "status" - I won't post the photo he sent since I haven't asked permission and a TON of my web traffic comes from people searching "Bjork Swan Dress" (SERIOUSLY - and not just around Halloween, this is one of the major searches that helps people find my blog - crazy, right?), but just know he looks much better than I did in it - it's okay, I'm used to being out-feminized by drag queens, and this guy is adorable. He's also getting good use out of her, wearing the costume to several events this season - the first of which was this past weekend.

Here's his message:

"Well, I was a total hit at the red carpet themed party. ...It was really fun hearing everyone's reaction. Everyone LOVED it.Since it was a red carpet party a lot of other people thought aboutdoing the same thing but didn't have the time/energy/money to pull it off. So, thanks to you I was a star for a [night]. Bravo! :)...I'll be taking it out again for Halloween in Seattle! Thanks again! ~John"

Awww, what a great little warm fuzzy for a Monday morning!

Goodbye Bjork

I haven't put a lot of time into my Etsy shop yet, mostly I just wanted to get it up and ready in case I get a huge burst of inspiration and start making aprons (or something) again. So I just put in a few odds and ends, and one of them was my costume from last year, my home made version of Bjork's Swan Dress.

I listed it for much less than it cost me to make (boas are expensive!) but still a higher end costume price, and I've gotten a MILLION hits with people looking at it, but no buyers.

Until tonight.

I cracked open my secondary email, and there it was - "your paypal transaction has been processed."

Huh?

I opened it up and sure enough, Bjork has found a new home!

I'm a little conflicted, I don't think I ever thought through giving her up, but I am really happy someone will find joy with her again. I'm all for recycling and I had briefly considered taking her apart and re-using the boas, but that just seemed too cruel. She took hours of my time to create, not to mention the time spent driving all over town buying Michael's and JoAnn's out of white boas.

Now she's wrapped in a garment bag and folded into a big box, on her way to Washington state. Hopefully she'll be loved and appreciated, and maybe even win some costume contests. Farewell, Bjork, I really enjoyed your company...

Bjork Swan Dress

Halloween = LOVE
Not suprising for a crafter and costume lover and enjoyer of themed parties. I'll have a lot of Halloween stuff to post on here, and since I happen to have last year's party photos on my computer right now, I'm starting with this one.

The theme for my Halloween party last year was "A Hollywood Halloween" and I encouraged people to come as celebs, movie characters, classic Universal monsters, etc. I had tossed around a few ideas and finally came up with one outlandish enough to be worthy - BJORK! Her iconic Oscar's dress is instantly recognizable, infamous, and hillarious. It was even fun to make, if a bit costly.

Feathers are expensive. In most any form. I went with feather boas in an attempt to make it somewhat reasonable time wise to feather the majority of the dress, but boas are $3-8 each, even on sale. Let's not count how many are on the dress :) I tried to nab them on sale or with coupons, meaning I was in Joanns & Michaels almost daily and cleaned them out several times, but it was worth it.

The base of the dress was a button down white cotton dress by Target that I picked up at Goodwill for under $6. I'm not much for building things from scratch when its cheap and quick to come up with a shell, so this was perfect. I opened a few buttons and created a v-neck, and then got to work hand sewing the boas to the waist. The top is covered in maribou for a slightly different look and less bulk. If I had to do it over again, I would have hung the boas slightly lower - they created a lot of bulk around the middle, probably not that flattering, though it still felt flouncy and fun. And I would have flared it out with a square dance crinoline to give it more shape.

I made my own template for the swan's head pieces - basically a circle with a triangle beak, and a rectangle neck. I made the base of it out of white cotton (just one of those "fat quarters" sections Joanns sells for $1 on sale). The black and orange are felt, also just the cheap 8 1/2" x 11" sheets they sell at all craft stores, and the eye was a silver plastic button.

I think it came together really well! It did shed feathers all night, but that's probably to be expected, and it was fun to wear. I topped it off with a cheap pageboy wig I found on clearance for $7 = PERFECT!

I didn't go for total authenticity with this, but more in terms of capturing the iconic nature of the image. Bjork's original dress was on flesh mesh, with a lace braw showing through. I thought that looked tacky and unflattering, so I improvised, and I really liked the result.

If you're interested, the costume is now in my etsy shop - fits up to a size 14, or take it in/belt it for a smaller size. It's pretty versatile.