Writer, Musician, Everyday Magic Seeker
This is part three of a series on historybounding aesthetics. To read the series introduction for context, click here. This series was inspired by the Style Avatars series by Blue Collar Red Lipstick (article).
Well met, everyone, and welcome back to the blog!
For some reason, I was a bit hesitant to post this final-ish chapter in our Historybounding series (I say final-ish because I still don’t know whether I’m going to include a bonus round). This brings up a topic that I’ve never really discussed on this blog. That said, I’ve made no secret of it on my Instagram and Twitter already, so I see no reason not to talk about it now. Without any further delay, here is part three of my historybounding aesthetic series:
My Faer Lord
If you follow me on Instagram and Twitter, you may know I use fae/faer pronouns as well as they/them. That was one of the inspirations for this aesthetic, the name of which being a play on My Fair Lady. If “Gibson Grimm” is where all my Edwardian and steampunk influences go, and “Geralt of Rivendell” is where all my inspirations from Lord of the Rings, The Witcher, Skyrim, and the Elven Alliance series go, then “My Faer Lord” is where all my inspirations from Phantom of the Opera, Fair Folk stories like the A Court of Mists and Fury series, vampire stories like Carmilla and Dracula, and games like Bloodborne, Vampyr, and Dark Tales go. It has a darker color scheme, it’s more Goth-leaning, and it’s more openly androgynous than my other aesthetics.
Teeny-tiny confession: I’m often not comfortable with a lot of feminine things. I hardly ever wear jewelry, I often only use concealer, foundation, contour, and brow product for makeup (even mascara is too much sometimes), and if there’s anything resembling a ruffle (barring petticoats and the like) or a pastel color in a clothing item, I’m automatically inching away from it. Don’t even get me started on pockets (or lack thereof). So, this is where “My Faer Lord” comes in, for when I’m tired of making feminine things “work” for me.
Aesthetic concepts:
Style inspirations:
If you follow me on Pinterest, I have a subsection in my aesthetics board for “My Faer Lord”:
Tentative Sewing List:
What do you think of this aesthetic? Let me know in the comments section down below!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Until next time, stay magical, everyone!
Edits: The inspiration list used to include the works of Sarah J. Maas. I can no longer, in good conscience, support this artist, and have thus removed her from this list. I regret this error. This article has also been edited to update my pronouns.
This is part two of a series on historybounding aesthetics. To read the series introduction for context, click here. This series was inspired by the Style Avatars series by Blue Collar Red Lipstick (article).
Well met, everyone, and welcome back to the blog! Today, part two of my historybounding aesthetic series is long overdue, so here it is!
Geralt of Rivendell
While Gibson Grimm is more of a work persona, Geralt of Rivendell is more casual or around the house. I came up the name to make a reference to Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher and Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings at the same time. Here are some inspirations and ideas I’ve come up with to describe “Geralt of Rivendell”:
Concepts:
If you follow me on Pinterest, I have a section of my aesthetic board for “Geralt of Rivendell”:
Inspirations:
Color Combinations:
Sewing list:
What do you think of this aesthetic? Please let me know in the comments down below!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Until next time, stay magical, everyone!
Edit: Evangeline Lilly is now listed as the actor for Tauriel. Typos have been corrected.
This is part one of a series on historybounding aesthetics. To read the series introduction for context, click here. This series was inspired by the Style Avatars series by Blue Collar Red Lipstick (article).
Well met, everyone, and welcome back to the blog! It’s time for our first historybounding aesthetic!
I came up with this aesthetic when I was trying to figure out how to navigate my love of historical costuming in the brutal heat and humidity of Florida. Steampunk in the classical sense of the aesthetic is many layers of materials that are often thick and often less breathable than ideal, and so I wanted to adjust accordingly for light layers with a more streamlined silhouette and more fairytale influences with the Brothers Grimm, as well as some paranormal influences with the rise in the Spiritualist movement and the rise in popularity of Gothic literature and horror novels such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So now, I shall present the Gibson Grimm aesthetic.
Aesthetic inspirations:
Colors:
If you follow the link to my Pinterest board down below, I have a section dedicated to Gibson Grimm:
Fashion Inspirations:
Tentative sewing list:
What do you think of this aesthetic? Let me know in the comment section below!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Until next time, stay magical, everyone!
Revision: Cathy Hay has been added to the list of inspirations. I regret this omission.
Well met, everyone, and welcome back to the blog!
Last year, I posted a picture on my Instagram of a sewing pattern by Truly Victorian. Surprisingly, that photo got almost twice as many likes as I usually got during that time, so it showed me that people were very interested in that. Today, I want to show my plans for “historybounding”, a term from costuming YouTuber Morgan Donner in this video.
In short, “historybounding” is when people incorporate historical influences into more modern styles of clothing (similar to the concept of “Disneybounding“). For instance, I’ve worn an 18th-century-style skirt with a modern T-shirt and sandals or a minimalist blouse and modern shoes. The possibilities are close to infinite and depends on what one’s interested in and which eras one wishes to incorporate.
On a serious note, I think this is important to address before we go too far into this. Considering how some traditional/vintage (life)style communities can get too problematic too quickly (Strange Aeons’ video about the tradwife community on Tumblr comes to mind for me), a lot of historybounders I know follow the quote from Dandy Wellington‘s hashtag, “Vintage style, NOT vintage values”. Historybounding is for anyone and everyone and has nothing to do with worldview, gender, lifestyle, and so on. Okay? Okay. With all that in mind, let’s continue.
For full transparency, this post is inspired by Blue Collar Red Lipstick’s series about Style Avatars (link to Part One here), and similar to Blue Collar Red Lipstick’s series, each of my aesthetics is going to get its own post. If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have noticed that my style tends to split into three, maybe four subcategories, and I want to fully develop and introduce each one. Will this drift into Tumblr-aesthetic territory? Perhaps. Let’s get started!
Because I’m planning to sew a lot of the pieces for these aesthetics myself, I decided to make some guidelines that every piece has to meet: comfort, versatility, and creative expression. I want to expand on these a bit before we move into the aesthetics themselves, so here we go:
1) Comfort (CW: body image issues)
My aesthetics have been constructed based on my current environment. I live in Florida. The weather here is notoriously very hot and humid, and I’ll just say we’re called the Sunshine State for a reason. In addition, my complexion is quite fair and I’m sensitive to heat, so all it takes is a few minutes in full sun for me to be utterly miserable and possibly already on my way to a burn. As a result, I feel I need to be quite particular about what I wear. Skin coverage is a necessity, which also makes it imperative to utilize natural fibers that are light, breathable, and soft. I would also want to use parasols, hats, and fans more organically, because wearing shorts and a T-shirt with a lacy parasol is… a look. (Go on, ask me how I know.)
While we’re here, I want to address something I hear a lot when I talk about layers and full sun coverage: “Aren’t you going to be too warm in that? Wouldn’t that make you overheat?” The short answer is this: it depends on what I’m wearing. In my own personal experience (and according to videos such as this one by Prior Attire), wearing clothes made of natural, breathable fibers such as linen and cotton feel a lot better in hot weather compared to synthetic fibers such as polyester and rayon, which trap heat and don’t let the body breathe. Plus, if I use a hat, fan, and/or parasol, that also minimizes sun exposure, similar to staying in the shade to stay cool.
Another facet of comfort is mental comfort. Abby Cox talks about this concept in this video about wearing 18th-century clothing for five years. I highly recommend watching this video, but I’ll describe her point a bit here. Basically, modern clothing in general (and modern womenswear in particular) forces us to change our body from the inside to achieve a fashionable silhouette, rather than using optical illusions with corsetry (NOT tightlacing—there’s a huge difference), padding, and bustling to build a fashionable shape. Without getting too deep into dark, triggering topics, I tend to be uncomfortable when I wear modern clothing, both physically and emotionally. I often wonder how much of that discomfort is from clothes not fitting me properly, and also from how few favors modern clothes do for my natural shape. I’ve even considered wearing corsets and stays for bust support and preventing waistbands from digging too tightly into my stomach. I’m tired of squirming all day in uncomfortable clothes that make me feel awful.
2) Versatility
Since I have effectively three or four different aesthetics, I’m not sure I can do a capsule wardrobe in the textbook sense of the phrase. Regardless, I want my clothes to be as versatile as possible, with each piece pairing with as many other items as it can. The neutral colors I’m drawn to are earth tones like warm browns, olive green, and cream, as well as black, gray, and white. The accent colors I plan to incorporate are forest green, bronze, and indigo blue, as well as some moments of red to incorporate my fandoms. My preferred metallics will be warmer tones like copper, bronze, and gold, though I’ll probably wear some pewter and silver from time to time. While I wouldn’t be against wearing dresses, I’d probably have more versatility with skirts, trousers, and tops. Though I plan to sew clothes for each aesthetic, ideally, a good amount of my clothing will be able to overlap with another aesthetic to develop a capsule wardrobe of sorts.
3) Creative expression
I love my fandoms, and I love showing off my fandoms through clothing or accessories, so ideally, these aesthetics will incorporate a lot of those fandoms with various degrees of subtlety. Also, sewing is one of my hobbies that allows for self-care through creativity, helps when I have writer’s block, and I feel empowered when I’m wearing something I made myself. It’ll also be a test in resourcefulness and creativity to make sure everything works together and is versatile enough.
Links to aesthetics:
What would you consider your style aesthetic? Do you have more than one too? Please let me know in the comment section below!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Until next time, stay magical, everyone!
Well met, everyone, and welcome back to the blog! Earlier this year, I wrote a post about what my 2020 resolutions were. Now that we’re in the final month of 2020, I thought it’d be a good idea to revisit my resolutions for this year.
While I feel it’s important to acknowledge where there’s more room for growth, I also want to acknowledge where I succeeded. Upon looking at my personal vision board and the list of resolutions I had for myself, there are a few successes I’d like to celebrate:
What are your resolutions for 2021? Did you meet any of your resolutions for 2020? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Until next time, stay magical, everyone!
I linger at the hawthorn tree
and beg you not to follow;
I know who may be waiting
under the enchanted canopy.
I long for their rescue
from this dark, wicked world
and for the whispers in the earth
to beckon me home,
where I will finally belong.
These past few months have been chaotic with news of the coronavirus COVID-19, and I hope everyone is staying safe and self-quarantining for their safety and the safety of others around them. So far, I’m okay, I’m self-quarantining, and since one of my day jobs is already online and the second job is going to be remote also, so far, it’s been business as usual. Meanwhile, I’ve seen a lot of posts on my Facebook and Instagram about people making things during their isolation, and honestly, as much as I want (and have tried) to join in, I’ve felt such a creative block during this time.
To be fair, there are people saying that there’s no pressure to be productive, and I’ve heard and appreciated those voices. It’s not surprising to me that some people are having a lot of anxiety about this, and it’s important to validate those feelings; I’ve never seen a global health crisis like this in my lifetime, so I understand fear of the unknown is a thing. On top of that, spring is always a chaotic time for my headspace (I’m convinced that if I were a member of the Faerie Courts, I’d be one of the Autumn or Winter Court because spring and summer are a nightmare for me), and creating while running on nervous energy doesn’t allow for results that I’m satisfied with. Even though I personally want to keep making things so I can have some structure to my schedule, I don’t want to pressure myself into being creative when anxiety is taking up my mental bandwidth.
In case you need to hear it, regardless of whether you want to create or don’t want to create, it’s okay. This is a trying time for all of us, and it’s okay to need a break from creating. Stay safe, stay informed, stay calm, and until next time, stay magical, everyone.