princess for a day

I'd love for this to be about some beautiful dress that I just sewed up for Halloween. I'd love to show pictures of me waltzing around in some yellow confection of a Belle dress (she's my favorite!).

But...school...and paper...and studying...

So instead, I have a pile of ideas, yet-to-be used ideas that require oh-so-much loverly sewing. One of the ones I really like is Disney princesses in a different era. Say, Belle in the 1950s.

I love the 1950s silhouette with the tiny waists and big full skirts...and that's essentially Belle's dress. The eighties ball gown silhouette strangely has a decent amount in common with the fifties. Who woulda thunk.

The crucial bits to being recognizeable are A. that it's yellow and B. that it includes something slightly off the shoulder. For inspiration, though you can pick any dress with a portrait-style neckline and some nice little frills and furbelows. This one is one of my favorite dresses and one of my main historic Belle inspirations!

This is an example of how you could take the simple fifties dress and add an overskirt to make a slightly more decadent skirt à la Belle's (very eighties) ball gown. 

This is much more late 1940s, but still Dior New Look. It would be perfect for a lovely post-war Belle!

And who saw this 1860s-style pattern without instantaneously thinking about Belle? Big, full skirts with the right lines...I may not be up to such an involved project, but how amazing would it be to make something so completely period and so completely princess!