Behind The Scenes: Alice In Wonderland Photoshoot

The idea for my Alice In Wonderland costume formed at the end of summer after seeing some of the classic illustrations online. I have always loved the story of Alice and the themes of the book have many parallels with my own life and personality.

I have never been one for buying off-the-peg costumes, mainly because "one size fits all" rarely takes an hourglass figure into consideration, but also because they tend to be overly sexualised and I prefer to stay faithful to the original source when cosplaying. I am no stranger to making my own costumes, so looked forward to the challenge.

I used my September Patreon earnings to purchase  all the material and zips I needed for Alice's circle dress and apron, as well as a ready-made petticoat, blonde wig, striped socks and quality playing cards. I had a small window of opportunity to make a start, but unfortunately my local Royal Mail delivery office chose that exact moment to go on strike. By the time everything eventually arrived, I was busy once again and Halloween was getting closer.

Finally, with just over a week to go, I was able to make a start. Whilst the accepted procedure is to go and buy a pattern, I had something very specific in mind so increased the difficulty level by creating my own from scratch. 

Circle skirts require the use of Pi to work out the circumference in relation to my waist, but that's the easy bit. The difficulty comes in drawing a perfect circle that big. But luckily I was able to call upon Gareth's technical drawing skills and my dining room floor was soon taken up with huge newspaper sphere. 

For the top of the dress, Gareth used one of my existing Hell Bunny dresses to design something that would fit across my boobs but remain tailored to my small waist. My existing dress was sleeveless however, so we spent an entertaining hour following online instructions such as "draw a line from A to D" which ended up like that Christmas special of Terry & June where they attempt to assemble a plastic Chinese tree.

Finally it was time to transfer the pattern to the fabric and cut it out, which Gareth once again completed with more patience and accuracy than I could muster at that point. Without his help in the design stages, I probably wouldn't have got so far.

Stitching everything together with the sewing machine was quick and straightforward. It was a relief when everything fit first time and looked exactly as I had envisioned.  

Making the apron was much easier and was simply a case of measuring two rectangles within the areas of the dress, one bigger than the other,  then ruffling the bottom section before sewing them together and attaching the straps. As soon as I tried the completed combo on for size, it was obviously Alice In Wonderland. Adding the wig, socks and my ballet flats completed the look. We finished the costume on the Sunday morning before Halloween and began on the photoshoot the same afternoon.

It was always intended to be a photoshoot of two halves, mainly as a little nod to my perceived duality - the "naughty" Louise and the "nice" Louise - which tends to cause a lot of confusion amongst the vast majority of my followers, when in fact I'm only ever being myself. Both sides are real and ever-present, neither is an act and both aspects work together to create my personality.    

The main photoshoot is really more of a performance art piece, particularly when coupled with an autobiographical story that I attempted to write in a Lewis Carroll style. Only one line is lifted from the original text as a nod to my source material ("down, down, down..."). The Bridge book has no relevance, other than the fact that we needed to tie the real world to the fantasy and it was the only thing on hand featuring playing cards!  

Most of the props were items from our personal collection or, in the case of the Eat Me and Drink Me labels and the painted rose,  made from scratch by Gareth. The part of the Cheshire Cat is played by My Scare Pal Art from Monsters University and the white rabbit is played by one of my Sylvanian Families characters.

"Good Alice" is a faithful recreation of the classic illustrations combined with the original Disney version of the character. Some followers really don't like it when I dress as a young girl (see also: Wednesday Addams), particularly the ones who think I'm about twenty years younger than I actually am.  But at the end of the day I'm just a self-aware, grown woman in a costume.  

"Bad Alice" is inspired in part by the alternative Alice found in the American McGee computer games. I changed into my high heels and the white stockings that were gifted to me by a follower for one of my more typical sexy shoots. 

I stayed in character as much as possible, but some photos were clearly "Louise dressed in a costume" rather than "Alice." As I'm still pleased with how they turned out, I will be posting them as stand-alone sets. 

My favourite photo from the day is the "falling" shot, which was achieved by laying on my back on a black canvas surrounded by physical playing cards. In Photoshop, I then added a swirl and some photos of the same playing cards to add depth and movement. The blurriness of my hands would normally have caused me to reject the image, but on this occasion it added to the effect. An alternate take saw me balancing on a chair to create a levitation effect, which also turned out quite well using the same method. Photoshop was also used to add both of my faces to the mirror and to give the impression that I was throwing a playing card towards the camera as "Bad Alice".

This has been one of my ambitious projects and I have loved every bit of the process, even if some moments have been infuriating and tested my patience. Although not always obvious, Prawn Cufflinks is very much a joint effort with Gareth and his contributions have made this what it is. The crowd-funding I receive from Patreon has also been much appreciated, so thank you to all of my subscribers.

Now my attentions turn to my Christmas costume...