Urizen kit

[bouteillebleu]

This afternoon loopymushroom and I took photos of our kit in her back garden and back room - they're on Flickr here.

Kit search for Empire took me three trips to charity shops: one with freddiefraggles to Burleigh Street, one with loopymushroom to Burleigh Street, and one on my own that went along Burleigh Street and all the way up and down Mill Road. (There are so many charity shops in Cambridge!)

Other things are a dress that's been in my wardrobe for years (wore it as a teenager), leggings from Sainsbury's, and an excellent embroidered abaya/jilbab that I bought on eBay.

Here are some photos of the full cold-weather kit. It's missing gloves (which I need to sort - my hands are tucked in because it was very cold) and the sash/stole that my group is sorting out for every member (instead there's a belt under there).



I was hoping to have my kit meet the £30 kit challenge, but the abaya from eBay was a bit too expensive for that. The rest meets it, though:

£2 belt, Scope
£60 overrobe, eBay
£4 green tunic, can't remember shop
£6.50 for white sherwani, Cancer Research
£9.99 for dress underneath, British Heart Foundation
£5 for leggings, Sainsbury's (2 for £10!)

Total cost minus boots/socks: £87.49

The overrobe is huge, by the way. The seller said it would fit up to size 16 - I'm pretty sure it would have fitted me last year when I was size 22-24.



There's also elastic on the inside of the robe that, when tied together, makes the embroidered parts fold in at the back so it gives the effect that you get from a stole. I really like this. :)



For warm weather, I'm not quite sure what to wear. At Maelstrom even just one layer was often quite hot. (Then again, I had more fat on me... :)

The kit underneath the overrobe is this, but the layers don't work quite that well:



It might work with the blue dress instead:



Another possibility is just the green tunic and blue dress:



Or this orange shirt and either the blue dress or a different skirt:



But I'm also considering just cutting out the lowest layer (the dress) and making sure the sherwani is less starchy and/or itchy, and then wearing a shift underneath if need be. I'll see how the first event goes and then adjust.

Comments

[evilgrayson.livejournal.com]

That over-robe is absolutely gorgeous, and so's the embroidered shirty-thing.

In other thoughts, have you tried Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi clothing shops? I'm not sure if Town-You're-In has such things, but if there is one they can be absolutely brilliant for both kit and fabric to make kit out of.

[bouteillebleu.livejournal.com]

I have - there's a shop on Mill Road called Himalaya that sold salwar kameez and also saris, I think. The problem is that the costume suggestions for this character's nation are a bit restrictive - the main inspiration they mention is "high elves" and the suggested colours are generally pastels. A lot of the stuff in Himalaya was really pretty but too bright. :)

[trail-of-fire.livejournal.com]

The kit looks great and so do you! :)