My sister recently invited me to a masquerade ball, which was a fundraiser for one of her social groups. I, of course, said yes. Most of my reason for saying yes was motivated entirely by the desire to wear this mask that I bought in Venice.
My sister picked up a cheap version at the local dance store.
NB Venice is one of my favourite cities in the world. You can read about it here and here.
I partnered the black lattice mask with a full length black wool evening cape and a white dress with black flocking and black velvet edging.
So let me tell you a little bit about this dress. I bought it from the Mill Market in Ballarat from the Weiner Pants stall. It’s a stunning dress, full length and strapless and very clearly home made, or at least ‘altered’.
When I bought it, it smelled of a thousand dead cats, a warehouse of mothballs and old people. I indignantly decided to clean it and I soaked it, rinsed it, wrung it out gently and hung it to dry. This stunk out the entire house. Three times I washed it. It still stank (although marginally less).I took it to the dry cleaners where I learned that you cannot dry clean flock, because it removes the flock from the fabric.
I am stubborn. So I washed it three more times then hung it in my parents outdoor entertaining area for 2 weeks. It still stank, but mildly. It took almost 1 whole year of fresh air to eventually get rid of the smell.
This is the first time I have worn it!
I also wore it with the hoop of my mother’s wedding dress. We all know where this went. I ended up playing dress ups in her late 70s early 80s (can you tell?) wedding dress. I have a smaller waist than her, but she had bigger boobs. Mum took this shot of me before I took it off.
