The bodice of the gown is tucked down into the skirt. A cream silk blouse substitutes for it, and a black satin Renaissance Dream "corset" from Frederick's of Hollywood gives definition and contrast. Black satin opera gloves, pulled up to meet the sleeves of the blouse (which are rolled under and "bloused"), finish the gown. Note that the only skin exposed is my face, neck, and cleavage.

The lovely rhinestone tiara is on my head, though barely visible in this photo--rather ironic since the whole point of this thing was to show off the tiara. I'm also wearing my great-grandmother's Edwardian "paste" jewelry.

I wasn't entirely happy with the makeup; I was trying to get a sort of dark glamgoth look, but didn't test my ideas beforehand so it didn't quite work. Eyeshadow is glittery black and glittery silver from Hard Candy, with Rimmel metallic silver eyeliner and L'Oreal silver mascara. Plain black Wet 'n' Wild lipstick is topped with iridescent gloss and the glittery black shadow, and the skin is dusted with iridescent powder.

Believe it or not, I can dance in this getup.

The first, and biggest, change was to dye the gown and the blouse. I got this shade with plain old Rit dye, in three separate dyebaths: the first, four boxes of black, for a deep coppery-eggplant shade; second, a box of black and three boxes of black plum, for a coppery-purple shade; and the third, two boxes of black plum and two boxes of purple, to reach this shade. Each dyebath involved at least three hours of soaking. Despite Photoshop tweaking, this photo doesn't really show the color well; it's more purple than this.

The second change was in the makeup, which I was even more unhappy with this time. Once again, I didn't do a test run, and it quickly became clear that glamgoth makeup doesn't really work for this look. It's the glittery black Hard Candy shadow again, this time with a dark plum Revlon shadow and Prestige metallic plum eyeliner; the mascara is still L'Oreal but is plum now. Lipstick is a brand called Posner, a deep rich plum. Initially I tried shimmery white foundation and powder, but it was simply wrong, and I went back to a plain pale matte face.

The only accessory added is the Lenore doll, which I'd bought that afternoon and couldn't bear to part with. And you still can't see the tiara clearly.

I did one final dyebath, with all-purple dye, which raised the shade somewhat; it shows much better in this photo. It's still basically a coppery-plum shade, but is a little deeper and less warm than the last version. And, if you'll notice, it matches my hair perfectly.

The makeup is almost perfect. This time the plum shadow went on the lid only, with a pale lavender across the browbone, which made the eyes less "heavy." I tried the Hard Candy shadow one more time, and it just bleeds and smears too much; next time, I will do a plain matte black shadow. I also forewent the metallic eyeliner on the top lid, instead using plain ol' black crayon liner, and the effect is much better. Finally, the lipstick is new, a drugstore brand called Milani, which, like the dress, is darker and more purple.

And then there's the positively pneumatic cleavage...