Special Occasion Rentals

Our rental catalogue is large and varied, and a big reason why we took the plunge and moved to the double unit.  Gearing up for Baltimore Comic Con this weekend, we have been going through our rental catalogue looking for pieces to use along with our created pieces (and we are SO excited to share them with you... in two days!) and found some amazing pieces we forgot about or never knew existed.  After this weekend, we will begin showcasing some of our favorite pulled Halloween costumes from past Halloweens or parties, and some costumes that we put together ourselves to inspire.

What you may not know about our Closet is that we also do special occasion rentals for galas, themed parties, and other special to upscale events.  We can provide amazing and atypical gowns, alterations, and styling help for a fraction of the price of buying a gown off the rack that you may never wear again.  It's good for the environment, good for your wallet, and fun for everyone involved. Some of our favorite appointments have been for women who are going to parties and need a dress or accessories for the gown they already bought. 

We have current, vintage, and so-vintage-it's-current dresses and gowns from all fashions and periods.  We can provide style lines from every period to highlight your body's best features (I myself should have been born in the Romantic period... Empire waists and scoop necks are my jam.) Here we've highlighted some of the fantastic events our dresses, along with our beautiful clients (and sometimes ourselves!), have attended.

Our client Alyssa dressed up in Roaring 20s style for the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Gala. The hot pink sequined dress and black opera gloves came from our Closet and the fascinator was a custom-built-for-rental that now resides in the Closet. 

Photo credit: Woolly Mammoth 

Photo credit: Woolly Mammoth Theatre

Another client, Felicia, rented a lime green and orange with gold embroidery two piece sari-inspired gown that we just love for another woman to wear at the Annapolis Film Festival.  The Oscar costume was a custom costume we built for the event (and blogged about here), which now belongs to the Film Festival.  

  

Photo credit: Felicia Barlowe Clar

Photo credit: Annapolis Film Festival

Photo credit: Annapolis Film Festival

My bridal shower was an adorable late morning mimosas-and-crumpets affair (special thanks to my bridal party!), and Meghan wore a slate blue tea length dress from the Closet.  You can find it in the 40s section of our online catalogue.

  

Photo credit: personal collection

Photo credit: Kathleen Mansfield 

Photo credit: Kathleen Mansfield

I attended the wedding of one of my very good friends in June at Ceresville Mansion in Frederick. The ceremony was outdoors and the reception was inside, so I needed something that would be elegant but also breezy so I wouldn't melt in the late June swelter.  I found this amazing silk handkerchief dress in the 70s section of our Closet and fell in love!  

trying it on in the Studio! 

photo credit: personal collection

photo credit: personal collection

One of our lovely contractors, Sylvia, rented a dress from the 70s section of the Closet to attend this year's Helen Hayes Awards at Sidney Harmon Hall in downtown DC.  The rosy undertone perfectly compliments her fair skin and auburn hair. 

  

Photo credit: Sylvia Fuhrken

Photo credit: Sylvia Fuhrken

Photo credit: Sylvia Fuhrken

This year's overarching theme at the Laurel Museum is the Civil War, so it follows that the annual Laurel Museum Gala was also Civil War themed.  We have some beautiful Civil War era dresses that we got on our Gettysburg trip, but we ended up going with a dress we found in the 50s section and styling it with a white sash to give it that ultra-vintage feel.  Style lines often repeat themselves throughout the decades and centuries; it just takes a practiced eye to know the different iterations. 

Photo credit: Laurel Museum

What we wore: Brittany's and Meghan's Weddings

On two different NYC trips, Meghan and Brittany bought fabric for later use, and what better excuse to make a dress than your sewing studio coworker's wedding? Marilyn joined in the fun and created a dress for herself for Meghan's wedding.   It was great fun knowing no one else would have the dresses we wore, and we had full control over fit and style.  

At Meghan's Catholic wedding in Raleigh, NC:

Brittany and Marilyn

At Brittany's outdoor waterfront wedding in St. Mary's County, MD:

Marilyn, Meghan, Meghan's soon-to-be husband Nick, and two of our friends who also got married that June

A closer look at Meghan's dress, which also served as her rehearsal dinner dress: 

Meghan's Wedding Dress Roundup

In September, we posted about our Moms in the Studio day. Brittany and I invited our moms to the studio to discuss our wedding dresses!  Both Brittany and I wanted to wear our moms' wedding dresses, but we both needed to do some major updating before that could happen.  As beautiful as the dresses are and were (in 1975 and 1986), we wanted to pull them into 2013!  Months of work later, our dresses are done!!  Check out the transformation of my dress:

Left to Right: Marilyn's Wedding Dress, My Mom's Wedding Dress, Brittany's Mom's Wedding Dress

Before any work has been done.  Look at those sleeves!!

For now, the sash is just a strip of fabric and a strip of trim (held by my mom hiding behind the skirt!)

 First: The Sleeves

Goodbye sleeves!  They were stitched on like any sleeve would be so they were very simple and unobtrusive to remove.

So happy the sleeves are gone!

Playing around with the sleeve length.  I knew I wanted a cap sleeve to give a little more coverage for my Catholic wedding, but the shoulders were a little to broad for me for the sleeves to remain the same.

 Next: Tackling the neckline!

Scoop neck?

V-Neck?  Decision for now: wait until mom comes to town and have her help you decide ;)

Beading Decision

After months of working on my dress and feeling that it wasn't quite right, I realized that what the dress needed was to be de-beaded.  The entire bodice was beaded with pearl beads and sequins which were very fitting for 1986, but not so much for 2013.  After struggling with my decision and talking to my mom, I bit the bullet at took all of the beads off.  (Side note #1: This picture was taken while my car was getting serviced.  Weird looks all around.) (Side note #2: That entire bag of beads is missing, guess the VW guys got a present!)

The back was easy (but time consuming) to de-bead.  The front was a different story.  Many of the beads had been glued on so I had to take all of the lace off completely.  I reused lace from the sleeves to recover the bodice.

No neckline, no sleeves, no lace!  At this point, the front piece of lace was the only one I had removed from the sleeves so if you look carefully, you can tell that the bodice is mostly bare.

What a train!

Plain lace on the back

After many hours of cutting threads and plucking beads, I had enough plain lace to cover the entire bodice!!  To make sure that the lace would lay flat on my body, I put the dress on a dress form to pull and pin the lace into place.

All of the lace sewn on except for the overlapping pieces going over the bust!  To avoid Madonna cone-boobs, I cut a slit in each lace piece going over the bust.  This way, I was able to pull each half flat over the curves.

Not all of it came out perfect though...  Do you see the oval piece on this side that's a little bubbly?  I know it's small and not that noticeable, but the perfectionist in me had to fix it.

Enter Mom :)

While the boys were out bachelor partying, my mom and I sequestered ourselves to the studio to FINISH THE DRESS!  Since all of the lace had been sewn on, all that was left was the giant decision of what to do with the neckline and the sleeves.  Many hours, a trip to Hobby Lobby, and a tired Meghan later, the dress was DONE.

I repurposed the lace that originally trimmed the sleeves to complete the neckline.  They were already cut and created the perfect scoop out of the mesh.  The trim on the sleeves is a new addition but the scalloped edge fit perfectly with the sweetheart neckline of the dress.

In a stroke of pure BRILLIANCE, my mom suggested rather than having the sash follow around my waist line, to have it start at my waist in the front but taper into the basque waist in the back.  It was the final touch that really tied the sash into the dress.

Tired Meghan!  But so happy the dress is done and beautiful :)

 Now onto the professional pictures!  A huge thank you to my photographer Autumn Harrison!!

#WhatsUpToday July

Hello friends and loved ones!  We apologize for the radio silence this past month; we've been moving!!! We've doubled our space, adding a huge costume rental and staging area, as well as a beautiful bridal and costume fitting and consultation area.  If you've been following our doings on Facebook and Twitter you've seen the slow slow transformation, but it's pretty cool to watch it all again in sequence.  And on Wednesday, October 16 from 4-8pm come join us for an open house to see our finished product! We'll be featuring door prizes, items for sale, and a tour of our gorgeous new facilities. Don't miss it, and bring your friends!