Finished project - mad Egyptian

This finished project dates back all the way to the dim and murky depths of my ancient history (high school…shhhh!).

I'm a huge fan of Nefertiti (really - monotheism, patron of the arts, sense of humor, great mum - what's not to like?) so when I had to dress up as a historical period for a leadership camp (look, I was in student council, OK) of course I picked Egyptian.

Being me, I also picked difficult.

I was going for this look:



As I later learned, these dresses are actually linen sheaths overlayed with a mesh made from leather, which means that in real life, in pre zipper and dart days, they must have hung like sacks, and the Egyptian artists who depicted them as clingy were definitely practicing artistic license. I didn't know this information at the time, so I went for an interpretation of the artist's interpretation.

I decided to make mine out of a bit of unbleached cotton muslin, with an overlay of ribbons to mimic the leather.

My original idea was to have the overlay be of beads, but after doing a bit of it I realised that 1) that was going to take an insane amount of time and 2) I didn't have enough beads anyway.

So the mesh overlay is ribbons secured with sewn on gold beads, and it still took an insane amount of time.

I also beaded the collar over some vintage gold lame from Grandma's fabric collection, and made a Nefertiti-esque headdress out of (don't laugh) roofing felt, fabric, and lots of beads.

Other than the weight and the smell of tar if it gets hot, roofing felt is a great material to make headgear out of.

The whole outfit was, for me, incredibly risqué. I was (and mostly still am) terribly prudish, and showing that triangle of chest was a major step.



This photo is the only extent image I have of me in this outfit. It's actually only inch high and two inches long, and comes from a sticker photo machine they had at the leadership camp.

The dress and collar are packed away somewhere. After all that work I couldn't convince myself to get rid of them. Someday I'll pull it out and wear it again.

I realised as I was writing this that the dress has a definite 1920s aesthetic, and that I could have worn it with bits of muslin wrapped around me and had the perfect, effortless costume to go as a 'living mummy' to Windy Lindy tonight.

Blast! Instead I'm going for major effort human chicken. Sigh.