This was the costume that made me realize there's nothing at all "lazy" about my style of costuming--there's about 100 hours of work in this beast, even though I didn't construct the gown. But I did concept it, make the add-ons, and assemble it all.

I bought the dress from the Art & Artifact catalog in September 2000. I had no ulterior motive at the time; it was just a pretty, period-look velvet and satin black dress, that I thought would be a nice addition to a gothly wardrobe. But after it arrived, and I noticed its resemblance to a late-17th-century Italian gown, my brain began spinning. After all, Halloween was coming.

The essential concept was very basic: to add bows, accessories and a train to give it more of a period look, with some sort of "theme" to pull it all together. But I wrestled for weeks with exactly what the specific theme would be; I considered spiders, flies, bats, dragonflies, various kinds of flowers, and even a dark variation on the Ice Princess theme ("black ice"). All of the ideas had various drawbacks, whether it was scarcity of needed materials or fears that it would be too much of a cliche. I was fondest of the bat idea, but felt it needed something extra than just being "a bat." Then a random comment from a friend melded Gorey's "The Gilded Bat" with my idea, and a project was born.

The bows on the bodice, sleeves, and overskirt are made of wired gold organza ribbon. They have pins on the back,, so they could be easily attached to the gown; I also tacked them down at the corners once they were pinned on. The bows are decorated in the centers with rosettes of black tulle and small rubber bats that I painted gold and then coated with gold glitter. The bows on the bodice and overskirt also have swags of gold beads attached at the bottoms--I used Christmas-tree garland for that.

The train is made of gold tissue lame, with an overlayer of black organza flocked with bats. There's nothing fancy about the construction of the train; I simply stitched the fabrics together into one big rectangle, then attached it to the back of the gown under the overskirt. This way, it sort of "folds" in the middle and gives a vague effect of folded wings.

The mask was a huge project in itself. I decided to have a mask in order to give more of the effect of a Venetian "Ballo en Maschera"--these were elaborate costume balls thrown during Carnivale. I started with a plain black satin "lorgnette" style mask that I bought at a costume shop. I outlined the mask with black and gold cord, glued a "ruffle" of wired gold ribbon on the top, and glued two of the gilded bats on the corners. The swags of gold beads on the bottom echo the swags on the bows. The eyes are surrounded by black and topaz rhinestones. On the outer corner of the mask, over the stick, is a "streamer" of black tulle; I made this by tying together six lengths of fine-mesh black tulle, so that there is a small "pouf" at the top. Each length of tulle is cut in a "batwing" effect at the bottom. The individual streamers are all decorated with glued-on black and topaz rhinestones and small confetti bats, each of which I glued on myself, by hand (for the rest of my life, mention of the Sydney Olympic Games will make me think of hot glue and sticky tulle, because that's what I had on the TV while I spent hours gluing). Once finished, I glued the streamer to the back of the mask. Finally, I sprayed the entire thing with gold glitter.

I also made the bat-themed accessories. The necklace is just a length of the gold bead garland, to which I attached one of the gilded bats with a length of gold cord. The fan is a plain paper fan; I spray-painted it gold, added gold glitter and a length of the black and gold cord for a wrist-strap, and glued more of the small confetti bats on the frame.

The hair is a wig, which Ronda at Dragonfly Design Studio got for me (and did me an enormous favor in doing so). I pinned up the sides into a knot at the back, decorated with, yep, more of the gold beads and gilded bats--I made the bats into hairpins by gluing bobby pins on the back, they just had to be slipped into the wig.

The makeup took some experimenting to get right; this version was the fourth try and the first one I was really happy with. The eyes were done with matte black shadow over the lids in deep points and under the lower lashes, with gold shadow over the rest of the eye area and gold mascara. Lips were done with a black pencil, and then topped with gold mica powder (Ben Nye theatrical eyedust). Face, neck and cleavage were also dusted lightly with the gold powder. The final touches are the black and topaz rhinestones at the corners of the eyes, and the two bat "mouches," or beauty patches, all attached with eyelash glue.

And finally, the gown was put on over a corset and hoopskirt, with a black silk petticoat, and over-elbow black satin gloves.

This thing is a beast; it weighs a ton, is hard to maneuver, and I can't wear it for more than three hours. It's also worth every second of work I put into it. This won a hall costume award at Norwescon in 2001 (which is where these photos were taken), and also took first place in the Masked Ball at Terracon III. With this, I felt I had finally entered the ranks of a true costumer.

The final moral of this costume: hot glue is the kamikaze costumer's best friend.