Wedding Belle

Outfit of the (wedding) day (of one of my friends)

During the recent mini-hiatus, I went to Wales to visit family and attend a friend's wedding. The bride (my friend) had recently experienced some tragic losses in her family, so I didn't want to wear black to her wedding because I felt it would be inappropriately funereal, and she had requested that I be bright and be myself. Well, as much as I am a Goth, I do like colours, so I decided to put together an outfit in green and purple - my two favourite colours. I went with brocades lovely fabrics of the sorts that I love, and in styles that would express the sorts of things that I like in terms of fashion, just in colours other than black. 

Photo by Raven, taken in an alcove at the museum next to Cardiff city hall. 

The jacket is one you will probably recognise; it is one of my fancier jackets and is from DarkStar. I've had it a while, and I wear it relatively frequently. The green dress was quite hard to track down! Initially I planned on wearing a dark green Lolita dress, but tracking one down that was both in my price-range and in my size proved too difficult to do by the wedding, so instead I went in search of a vintage style dress. There were some modern vintage-styled dresses that I liked, but then I suddenly found this dress; an actual vintage dress from Austria, by Madl of Salzburg. I adore the fabric it is made from, and it is a rich emerald green with a fabulous pattern. The sleeves are puffy at the shoulders, but not hugely puffy.  I bought it on eBay for approximately £25 including shipping, which I think is a bargain! The skirt is quite long, and I think would fit a petticoat, but I don't have any of the right style and length to go with this dress, nor did I want to wear one to an August wedding! The tights are (if I remember rightly) from Primark, and the shoes were also bought on eBay. I can't remember who made them though. Cat handbag is from H&M. Raven necklace is from Restyle, but that particular style has been discontinued after with an issue with their supplier over the metals used for the alloys. 

Vintage Inspired Gothic Makeup

I am calling this vintage inspired rather than vintage because it is not accurate to any one period and is very much of a mixture of '50s inspired vintage and Gothic elements.  

Raven recently bought me the Adare dress by HellBunny, which is an A-line skirted, sweet-heart neckline dress in a vintage-inspired cut reminiscent of '50s designs, but with a Gothic print and Gothic detailing in the ribbons up either side. I will do another blog post that is an outfit post for the dress;this is just about the make-up.

Doe-eyed selfie.

I was aiming for make-up that complemented the vintage theme of the dress and the outfit I was wearing, and that wasn't to overtly or traditionally Gothic, as the weather and the outfit were both quite summery, so I did not want to wear lots of heavy make-up. I opted for tinted primer, concealer and powder rather than thick foundation, and also wore sun-screen because it was bright out and I burn easily. I contoured my cheeks and used a little shimmer. Pale skin was fashionable in the '50s, so I didn't really have to do anything there!

I'd rather condense selfies into not too many images.

Whenever I think of '50s pictures of women, I think of that rich red lipstick. I was trying out a new lipstick I'd bought - 'Russet' by Miss Beauty London. It's a really rich, almost blood-red colour, and I think it makes a nice pop of dramatic colour without being too bright to be Gothic as I felt a rich, bloody red would be a bit suited. My lips were over-drawn slightly for that full, pouty Marilyn Monroe look.

The eye make-up is certainly more a nod to the Gothic than to vintage styles; from what I have seen of vintage make-up adverts, pin-ups and photographs, eye makeup tended to involve black mascara and winged eye-liner to create definition without being the dramatic centre of the look. I went for something heavier as one of the trademarks of Gothic make-up is dramatic eyes. I lined both lids heavily and went with the 'cat' winged looked, then made them smokey with a black blending into a rosy red; this was to complement the red of the lipstick. I used white on the inner corner and waterline to give a more doe-eyed look.

Very blurry feathers close-up.

None of my make-up designs are complete without me drawing something in eye-liner, and as there are feathers on the dress, I decided to draw a few feathers encircling one eye. Drawn designs are something of a trade-mark of mine, and the outfit certainly wouldn't have suited any of my elaborate scrolling foliage, so I drew some feathers, carefully placed to help define my cheek-bone. Certainly this is not very vintage, but it is very much me. 

One thing I feel I should have done but did not, is fill out my eyebrows more. I usually have eyebrows that are plucked to a thin line, and most vintage looks, especially those of the '50s, have fuller, defined eyelashes, and while I did pencil them slightly to darken them, I was unsure about successfully filling them out when there's so little of my natural eyebrows left. Also, I don't usually use blusher, so I think I may have ended up a bit heavy-handed on this look. A much more pastel pink would have probably been more suitable. 

This is quite the deviation from how I normally look, so I would appreciate constructive criticism (and links to tutorials I can follow, in order to improve.)