Month: May 2014

Dress the Iconics — Jirelle

We got our first look at the one of the iconics from the upcoming Advanced Class Guide this week. Jirelle, the swashbuckler (gunslinger/fighter mix).  She looks amazing and has a really cool story to boot. Speaking of boots….. aren’t they awesome?

As pointed out in the discussion, there’s almost as much Taldor in her outfit as The Shackles.

jirelle_litThis is the most literal interpretation of her look I found, without going full-on pirate couture. (*cough* McQueen Spring 2003 *cough* Gaultier Spring 2008 Ready to Wear) This is from L’Wren Scott’s Spring 2010 Collection. Give her a cape and boots, and she IS Jirelle.  Light puffy sleeves under leather armor.  Rows and rows of covered buttons. The requisite pop of colour.

 

 

jirelleChoosing from the more literal pirate couture looks, I’m going with this from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fall 2004 Couture collection. Boots, gloves, hat, cape, sufficiently worn in-looking.  Sadly, she would not fit in in Taldor.

 

 

 

 

More swashbucklery goodness, courtesy of L’Wren Scott:

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(Fall 2007 Ready to Wear, Fall 2013 Ready to Wear, Spring 2008 Ready to Wear)

00100fullscreenL’Wren Scott really captures the swashbuckler essence.  Even her super girly, pink suits have a swagger to them. I can’t quite imagine Jirelle as a Lady who Lunches, but if she was, she’d wear this.  Such is the power of the jaunty hat.  Like the first image, this is from Scott’s 2010 Spring collection.

 

 

 

The oblig. pinterest board with other Jirelle appropriate outfits.

Evil Queen of Numeria — Part Deux

The No Plastic Edition

What would the Evil Queen of Numeria wear if she didn’t have access to 3d printed clothes?  She’d wear the most amazing combination of fashion and technology ever. That’s what.

faraday

Faraday Cage dress

The designer,  Anouk Wipprecht, made this Faraday Cage dress (in the classic scale mail over chain mail style) and performed with ArcAttack and their Tesla Coils at the SF Maker Faire. The full story:  http://makezine.com/2014/05/23/anouks-sizzling-hot-faraday-dress/. Also, an instructable, in case you want to make your own!

Man, I remember how proud I was to get an LED blinking with my Arduino.  I feel foolish.

 

HSF #2 — Innovation – Bright Blue Dye

(posts one, two, and three of the series.)

Bright Blue Dye

I think that this colour could only come from an aniline dye. Blue dye is hard to make.  Early dyes were made from indigo or woad, but I couldn’t find examples of these that produced that vivid a colour for fabric dye. Bright, vibrant fabric dyes were a product of Victorian era advances in chemistry.  The Dreamstress gives a great summary of early chemical dyes and a gorgeous Pinterest page with examples of the new colours.  The colour above looks pretty close to Nicholson’s Blue, developed in the 1860’s. Here’s an example:

nicholsonblue

Interestingly, Aldern Foxglove in Rise of the Runelords has the same colour in his jacket.

Evil Queen of Numeria

In the version of Numeria that has polyester and plastic available to Evil Queens, this is what the Evil Queen wears.

DitaVonTeeseinMichaelSchmidtbyAlbertSanchezYou are looking at exactly what you think you’re looking at: Dita von Teese in a mesh-like 3D printed dress. (Did you really think an Evil Queen of Numeria would choose polyester?)  It was designed by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti  Here’s the press release, complete with more pictures.  Make sure to read the comments about the golden ratio.

Evil Queen of Hoth?

00010fullscreenWait… wrong blog.

Pro tip: you’re not supposed to keep wearing the Tauntaun once the danger of hypothermia has passed.

This jumpsuit (yes, jumpsuit!) is from the Chanel Fall 2010 Ready to Wear Collection.  Linky to prove I’m not making this up.

Will There Be Polyester?

June is rapidly approaching and a goblin’s thoughts turn to Numeria.  The campaign setting book comes out next month. So, before I get spoilered, it’s time to start making ridiculous statements about what I expect for the Fashions of Numeria.

The official boards are full of question and speculations about the region.  Mostly about lightsabers. But so far, no one has asked the Most Important Question:  Will there be polyester?  Or its less important (ie: not Fashion related) parent question:  Will there be plastic? Logic would suggest, “yes”, because (here on Earth) it’s hard to imagine building a spaceship without knowing how to process petroleum.  The Shory were able to get cities airborne using magic, but I far as I know, those weren’t space faring.

ubiquitous jumpsuitAccording to all the documentaries I’ve seen (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Forbidden Planet, and Galaxy Quest) the first thing space faring people need are sleek, polyester jumpsuits. Jumpsuits were “a thing” on the Runways in about 2010 (*shudder*), so there were plenty to choose from.  I looked at about 300 images (who said fashion blogging was easy?) of over 2000 to find the perfect one.  I was honestly, truly trying not to use another McQueen, but this jumpsuit (from his Fall 2004 Ready to Wear collection) is Retro-Futuristic perfection.

 

3dprint

This dress is from Iris van Herpen and has a really great dark futuristic look.  Also.  It’s 3D printed. So that’s awesome.

If polyester jumpsuits don’t convince you, here’s another reason to include  plastic in Golarion. It conjures up some fantastic mental images.  The Sandpoint goblins on Junk Beach… now picture them with making nets out of old six pack rings that washed up on the beach.

HSF #2 — Innovation – Turtleneck

Finally, back to Father Zantus’s anachronistic turtleneck.

Previously, I talked about knitting and raglan sleeves. Today’s innovation is the turtleneck itself.  Ye Olde Wikipedia says at least as early as the 15th century.  Since their only credited source for this “fact” is http://www.chacha.com/question/who-invented-the-turtleneck, I’m going to remain skeptical.

Shirts with high, tight necks have existed for thousands of years.  Carl Köhler’s A History of Costume , describes and illustrates a high-necked Etruscan (so sometime between 750 and 250 BCE) woman’s robe (p 111 – 112).  He describes a slit in the back of the garment’s neck, which was laced up.  Without the slit, the wearer couldn’t get her head through the neck hole, unless the fabric stretched.  Like a knit.

Also like knits, turtlenecks didn’t gain popularity as outwear until the earth 20th century, but was worn as underwear or sports wear in the late 19th century.

First of the Empyreal Lords

I didn’t originally have plans to do Evil Empyreal Lords along with the Evil Queens, but these dresses required it.  These aren’t meant to represent the specific Empyreal Lords, just Earthly reinterpretations of the Gods.

desna shelyn

These are (obviously) for Desna and Shelyn.  Desna’s (on the left), came from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring 2014 collection. Shelyn’s came from Alexander McQueen’s 2003 Spring collection.

Challenge Accepted, Mr Schneider

Over on his tumblr, Wes Schneider issued an invitation/challenge/plea to the folks at Dungeons and Fashion (the ones who know the secrets of how to dress like a gelatinous cube) to create outfits for the Pathfinder Iconics, starting (of course) with Seltyiel.  The post is here.

Strangely, it never occurred to me to dress the Iconics, probably because they already have such well defined looks and the Evil Queens/Empyreal Lords are a more abstract extrapolation of the regional fashion.

I’m not the Dungeons and Fashions folks, but here goes. Pulled from the runways of the world, these are the looks I see Seltyiel wearing. Apologies in advance, these are Rule 63 Seltyiel (mostly), because I just don’t follow men’s fashion that closely.

These were the most literal interpretations of his look:

selt_literal_1 selt_literal_2

The one on the left is Emanuel Ungaro, the one on the right is Alexander McQueen (spring 2011 ready to wear).  I was trying to capture the tattered, adventure-worn look of the original art, so don’t look too closely at the McQueen, it’s made up of intricately cut leaf patterns.  (Maybe I’ll recycle it when I do Lini?)

Moving on to the spirit of Seltyiel’s look. These are all by Gareth Pugh.  I could have saved a lot of time and just linked to his page on style.com. and said “Anything from here”.  Seltyeil is practically his muse, especially the Fall 2011 and 2012 collections. I could see him wearing a lot of those collections, but these ones the most:

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If you doubt his ability to rock a leather jacket and chiffon palazzo pants, I give you this (Also Gareth Pugh):

sel1

Here’s my Pinterest page where I collected the images for this, if you’re curious.