noelle o designs

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a dance with a Great Gatsby theme

Last weekend was Homecoming in these parts and the theme this year was 1920’s style and film The Great Gatsby. We though about making a dress, (I really dodged the bullet on this one- I can just picture myself hand-beading hour after hour & day after day…) altering a dress and then decided to just rent a dress when we saw this beauty:
great gatsby partyHere’s Quinn, my daughter, the senior, conveniently obsessed with Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gastby (I might be a little obsessed as well- with ALL of his movies.) so we couldn’t help but throw ourselves into preparations for this event.
great gatsbyThe dress was rented from a local theater company, but after checking on the label in the back, we discovered that it- and many gorgeous others including 1920’s style dresses- can actually be purchased from a store called Uniquely Vintage. The shoes are actually thrifted but brand new, from a high-end thrift store in Park City. Perhaps the first pair of shoes I’ve ever found at a thrift store that were the right size! We also made the pearl necklace (when we couldn’t find one long enough) with beads purchased from a craft/fabric store. Make sure to use appropriately heavy duty string or wire to put it all together- this one broke at the dance and pearls flew and bounced everywhere- a movie moment, albeit unfortunate.
beaded flapper dressThe hairdo was a compilation of many Pinterest pictures pinned for this and other occasions on Quinn’s amazing Hair board. Her hair is actually about to her waist. There are 1000 bobby pins holding it in place.
great gatsby dressA favorite aspect of the dress… all of the sparkly beads swaying with the slightest movement or a great whirling spin.
20's tie and boutineerThe traditional pinning of the boutineer and placement of the corsage. Mason, Quinn’s date was a good sport and wore a vintage tie she selected. We almost put him in suspenders too.

IMG_7950All ready to dance, with the fall sun setting in the distance.

DIY: The making of the headband…
flapper headband with feathersThe band part of the headband is from Joann’s fabric store, in the trim section, cut by the yard. But most fabric store will have lots of fancy trims to choose from. I put in a small piece of elastic (about 2 inches long) under the feathers and flare so it would be easy to take on and off and not be too uncomfortable. The elastic is hand sewn in, feathers and brooch are glued on.
20's headband with featherThe feathers are just from a small craft pack, from any craft store. The brooch is a section from a broken bracelet found in a thrift store (for almost nothing) and worked out well because it was smaller and lighter weight than a traditional brooch.

The final report is that the night was a roaring success with most of the attendees in Gatsby, 1920’s themed dress, the ‘old sport’ of a DJ even followed the movie soundtrack- with a few musical diversions (Miley Cyrus) along the way. Eek.

20's dress

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