Historical Dress Picnic With My Friends

 

As you may know if you follow me elsewhere I recently hosted what is hopefully the first of many historical costuming meet ups with my friends. I'd spent this year working towards putting together a complete 18th century rococo outfit and this would be my first opportunity to wear it. I've been very excited about it for quite some time and the day didn't disappoint! The following blog post will be absolutely choc full of photos of the day and of my outfit, I hope you stay until the end! 

If you're going through the photos enlarged then you can use the butterfly dividers as an indicator that there's something to read~

The event was to be a picnic at Seaton Delaval Hall, a National Trust house not too far from the city. I was lucky enough to get a lift from my friend Jasmine and her boyfriend who would also be attending, as I didn't fancy lugging around my massive heavy picnic hamper on public transport in hip panniers. As you can see in the picture above, my wig was so high I had to sit weirdly in the car lol.

As we were arriving to the hall, it was incredibly foggy, though luckily the weather cleared up in time for us to have our picnic. The house, of course, was stunning; I do love old architecture.

While we were waiting for some people to arrive I decided to get some photos of my outfit before I ate. I'm glad I did as the sky was beautifully blue and sunny. Unfortunately in most of my photos the bows on the front of my Robe a la Francaise were wonky and I didn't notice ; A ;

You may also notice I had some trouble with keeping my hat on securely and not flopping down into my face. It has a comb attached to it but if any seasoned costumers have advice I would love to know!

For the picnic everyone brought a small selection of things. I baked a loaf of bread to make two types of finger sandwiches- vegan cheese & chutney, and cucumber and vegan cream cheese. I also baked some scones and brought jam and some vegan cream I whipped, as well as bringing some ginger beer, pink raspberry lemonade, and some candied ginger. I also supplied the paper plates and cups that kind of resembled like china crockery for maximum aesthetic-ness (only slightly ruined by the need for plastic containers for practicality lol).

Some things other people brought included delicious home baked ginger biscuits, many tubs of hummus, fruit, olives, Turkish delight, home baked ancient bread sandwiches, vegan pork pies and sausage rolls (didn't know vegan pork pies were a thing before then), pasta salad, and much more. As it turns out it was definitely too much food for us all and we should probably each bring fewer things if we do this again, but it was lovely nonetheless.

Once we were finished with our picnic we took a quick break to put our picnic things in the car before we were to start looking around inside. In typical me fashion I managed to gouge my own nail into my finger and it started bleeding quite a bit, so we had to then take a detour to the cafe and toilets to sort that out. For the remainder of the day I wore a big blue plaster, which I had to artfully hide in the rest of the photos we took. On our way back we discovered a small building with a massive hole in the ground (behind the iron bars) that was used to store ice all year round- very cool. Haha get it?

Totally historically accurate headphones I promise 😌

Just before we finally went inside we decided it would be cute to get some group photos. We ordered ourselves in chronological order too, with me in a rococo look, Jasmine in a Regency inspired outfit, Emily in a Victorian-esque historybounding look, Minty in and Edwardian inspired outfit, and Ruby in a 1920s style outfit. Since this was the first historical costuming event I hosted between just my friends, historical accuracy wasn't top priority, I just wanted people to be able to come! In fact I actually lent Minty the dress and hat to wear because I wanted them to be able to come. 

I'm considering making this a yearly thing, so hopefully now everyone has been to one they might be inspired. I know Ruby plans on putting together a proper Regency outfit for the Jane Austen festival next year.

Me, Jasmine, Emily, Minty, Ruby

We were very lucky that Jasmine's boyfriend was happy to be our photographer, so most of the photos you see are taken by him on my camera. Though some were taken on Jasmine's phone as my camera does not like indoor photos without a flash, and some photos were taken by Emily on her phone too.

This one is a candid of me resting while I waited for everyone

Once we were done taking photos and looking around in the main hall we took to the wings of the house. We took the opportunity to take some spooky photos in front of the window before heading to another room. In one room we found a wonderful little stage where we of course had to take some silly group photos.

After that we headed back up stairs, where myself, Emily and Jasmine got separated from Minty, Ruby and Jasmine's boyfriend, so all the photos here were taken by Emily on her phone. Her phone takes such nice photos, I wish my phone camera was that good! There were lots of lovely paintings in this part of the house, one of which Jasmine matched perfectly so we convinced her to get a photo with it. 

Jasmine matched this portrait so well!

It was getting close to closing time at this point so we had to rush and missed some rooms of the house. I think at some point I'd like to come back and look through the house more and read more of the information.

Once we were back outside the lovely sunny blue skies had gone and it was really foggy again, the photo below doesn't do it justice. Before everything closed we took a quick promenade around the garden and took some photos at the fountain. It's a shame there was no water in the fountain, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the heat wave. Although the heatwave was nowhere near as bad as it was down south.

While most of the things I wore were bought, I did make several accessories myself which you can read about in this blog post as well as this one. I also styled my wig myself, and have had several requests to drop a tutorial on tiktok. Luckily that was my plan anyway, and so I documented the whole process in photos and will be posting my step by step of how I styled it to this blog very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that. 

After that it was time to leave. We were all pretty exhausted at that point- who knew leisurely walking around a stately home could be so tiring! I hope this is the first of many historical dress outings, if you're in the North of England (or willing to travel from elsewhere in the UK) and are into historical costuming from anywhere between the 16th century and 1930s, whether it's bought or made by yourself then you're welcome to join the community I created. I made it as all the historical dress events I've found in the UK seem to be down south, which isn't particularly practical for me. 

On a somewhat related note, what hashtags and search terms do the historical costuming community generally use? Particularly for 18th century wear but also in general, I'd like to know how to find more people into this hobby and to make sure my stuff is reachable too.

I also put together a little video of the day~