Démodé

historical costume projects & resources

GBACG Holiday Tea

At the very end of December, the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild held a bustle-era tea at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.  The Palace is super fancy and dates from 1875 but was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake — the restaurant where tea is served is what used to be where carriages would pull in and is just beautiful:

Palace Hotel, San Francisco

The tea was hosted by Mrs. Vanderbilt (Cynthia) and THE Mrs. Astor (Catherine), both tres chic in their bustle gowns:

Mrs. Vanderbilt & Mrs. Astor

Costumes ranged from the 1870s to the 1890s:

Kij

Teresa and Bridget were both super pregnant and super cute with their unbuttoned bodices:

Teresa & Bridget

There was lots of gorgeous beading and fabulous hats:

Untitled

And a lovely lady wearing an actual antique late 1860s/early 1870s gown:

Untitled

I wore my purple and white striped Gwendolen dress, this time without the lower hoops as I wasn’t in the mood to wrestle them on BART (our local commuter train).  The bodice appears to have (ahem) shrunk, but luckily I saved scraps of the fabric and hit on the faaabulous idea of adding a V striped false waistcoat front — I’m so glad there are two runs of buttons on each side of the bodice opening!

Kendra

Sadly the hat I made to go with the outfit just doesn’t want to work over 1870s hair.  I could have jammed it on my head and not liked the effect, so I chose to go without (shocking!).

Tea was scrummy — I couldn’t even finish all of my sweets and had to take some home! And the hotel had lots of beautiful photo spots:

Kendra

All in all, a lovely afternoon!  You can see a few more photos in my Flickr set.

2 thoughts on “GBACG Holiday Tea

  1. I think this is one of my favorite dresses you’ve ever made! I really love the addition of the false front, even if it wasn’t originally planned.

  2. The false waistcoat looks fantastic! And I like how it looks without the bottom hoops. The skirt looks wonderfully huge either way.

    The venue looks amazing. Especially the glass ceiling.

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