When I first heard about the Vampire Ball, I assumed (incorrectly) that it was strictly a Victorian Affair. I was wrong—attendees are encouraged to attend dressed in the period garments that were popular at the time they were turned. Whatever suits your fancy! Fort me, that meant creating a late 1800’s jacket and skirt combo. I’ve had some inspiration tagged on Pinterest for a while, but never really had a good excuse to just go for it. The Vampire Ball became my excuse.

So I poured over my fashion history books, antique magazines, and finally came up with some solid inspiration. My intention was not to create a replica of any one of these.

I had a few yards of a grey floral fabric that I had bought years ago, though I knew it wouldn’t be enough to do much with. Looking for other fabrics to accent it, I popped into one of our local fabric shops, and lo and behold—there was more of the fabric! It was shoved into a corner on a clearance bolt. Which was simply perfect. I could now not only afford to buy it, I could get as much as I needed! I chose a few other simple, highly textured fabrics to accent the gown, and decided against any bright areas of color, figuring I would instead go with colored stockings. Here you can see the grey floral in the middle:

And now to begin…