"...Well-bred and mature and out of her mind! -- I feel pretty, oh, so pretty..."

(If you just got here: My Costume College messages start back on the 7th. This is the next-to-last in the series, although it doesn't really matter what order you read them in.) EDIT: My website's fine again. If you'd like to update a caption (for example, tell me what time period a costume is from), please feel free to send me the data via the caption-correction mechanism.

All this and I forgot to mention the chemise dresses. A number of ladies had dresses like these here. I got out there too late to catch them all -- I didn't get out to the courtyard after the Tea until almost 5 o'clock, and half of them had already dispersed. I got the impression that they'd been out there most of the afternoon. (Perhaps as an alternative to the Fantasy Tea?) koshka_the_cat is second from the right, in the teal hat. Most of these ladies have LJs, but I don't have permission yet to link to all of them.

I started work on getting my pictures online Monday, right after the convention, uploading a chunk, typing in captions, linking those pages up, then working on the next batch, trying to hurry up so people could find them and I could announce them here in my LJ Tuesday evening. It was while I was working on the last bunch -- the Sunday post-Tea afternoon and evening shots -- and looking at the chemise dresses in particular (and reading some of the comments from the LJs of the ladies who made the dresses) that I decided to go with the West Side Story song for my subject lines. It's just a happy coincidence that my s'daughter's name is mentioned in it.

I missed the LJ meetup that sewphisticate organized; it was Thursday night in the hospitality suite. (That would have been a good place to bring out the Live Journal ribbons.) Notes for next year: when trying to figure out if anything's going on late at night, check the bar, rooms 280/380, and the 5th floor of the Plaza Tower!

Costume College was a "target-rich environment," at least from a photo-shooting point of view. Despite the convention's attempt to discourage costumes: (taken from their FAQ list) CAN I WEAR COSTUMES AT COSTUME COLLEGE?
You can wear anything you like so long as it's for a PG13 audience. However, we actually discourage costume wearing while attending classes, and forbid the wearing of hoops in class. You should be as comfortable as possible and costumes are not always that. There may also be times when space is limited in a classroom, so big costumes are out of the question. Additionally, we advise that our attendees dress in layers since the classrooms vary in temperature, therefore a costume may not help keep the best body temperature for that room. Finally, there are safety issues with costumes in some of the workshops, and costumes are absolutely forbidden on the tours. So, we would prefer you save your costume wearing for the Tea, Gala, and other social events occurring during the run of College.there were a lot of people wearing costumes at the convention. A Hall Costume, in the sense of "everyday wear" that your character might wear, won't get in the way of attending classes and workshops. For example, Vanessa Wood wore this outfit here on Friday, which looks a lot like "Lucy" (as in, I Love) to me. (Lucy the Riveter?)

So there were lots of people wearing costumes in the halls. colleency had warned me ahead of time that most people would be rushing to their scheduled classes, and I shouldn't expect a lot of people to be happy stopping for photos. I tried to mostly just take pictures of people who were ambling along and didn't seem to be trying to get to their next appointment in a rush. And there were plenty of those. At times it was a bit overwhelming -- "I can't possibly catch up, so I'm not going to try right now." At C.C. it wouldn't just be a matter of a complete set being pictures of everyone -- it would mean trying to get every costume on every person. A daunting task, really. I'd need to be out by the check-in desk, not stationed at the Costume Exhibit, for that to be feasible.

I was talking to someone -- don't quite remember who or when, other than it was some time on Sunday -- about the relationship between costumers and photographers. The anime convention fans have already figured it out, but C.C. doesn't get a lot of photographers. The fan I was talking to seemed a bit surprised by the fact that there aren't many photographers coming to C.C. to shoot. I said, no, it's no surprise, it's not their focus (pardon the expression) -- as a companion example, look how few costumers go to photography conventions.

Some people were still in costume Sunday evening. Kevin'n'Andy, and some of their friends such as iamradar ran the Hospitality suite Sunday night, to promote costume_con. I think it was the first time a lot of the people there had seen one of their "Evil Genius" parties. kproche spent a lot of time behind the bar; bovil came out on the balcony to smof with me and fairegoddess after we got back from the Burb.

Max Callahan mentioned that he'd been a masquerade judge at anime conventions, including Anime Expo back when Marissa was in charge (i.e. pre-Kenji). I could hear Lindsay's eyes lighting up at that news... Andy talked a little about Japanese Cosplay, which they learned from one particular fan's visit to L.A.con II. They don't have a tradition of "fancy dress" (like we do, for Halloween). Traditional or ritual dress, certainly. They all dress like Santa Claus for Christmas because that's the traditional costume, for example. (A certain anime I've seen suddenly makes a lot more sense.)

Joyce Saunders asked me what I'd like to see in Costume College next year? I explained that I'd made one costume -- hand-sewn, fake fur, velcro, and I wear these ears to every convention ever since; I'm a minimalist costumer and probably not her target audience. She told us she'd been elected to the CGW board as Ambassador-at-Large and her job specifically is to talk to people about what they want. I gave her my two primary suggestions: move Hospitality downstairs to room 180, and have Hospitality open during the day. I'm hoping they take at least one of those suggestions.

And then Joyce mentioned that colleency had been elected as CGW Vice President. That was big news. I don't know if CGW has multiple VPs, or just the one; in any event, I told Joyce that I wouldn't need to bend her ear (Joyce's) too much, because Colleen would already know most of the things I'd be likely to say. In any event, that felt like a sign that I didn't need to stay much later rehashing this year's C.C. and suggesting changes for next year -- I should really hit the road and go home to sleep in my own bed.

On my way out, I send a text message to Colleen, "congratulations and good luck" and was surprised to get a voice call back explaining that she'd left after two hours of meeting and my message was how she learned she'd been elected. Colleen had told the people at the front "Joyce is going to nominate me. It's okay with me. I'm leaving, I can't stay any longer." I told Colleen, that kind of decisive leadership is what CGW wants in a VP.

So that's all my notes. Four days of volunteering (counting the one hour Thursday night), two days of photo uploading, five days of writing it all up. Hope you've enjoyed it...

"...That the city should give me its key. A committee should be organized to honor me."

Okay, I was wrong, one more note from the Costume Exhibit. Here you see library_lynn sitting in the room-sitter's chair. We only had the one chair. (Note: next year can we fit another one in there?)

All of the costumes had a sign on the floor, and I had a laser printer in the other room plus a similar plastic sign-holder. So I made up a sign that said:

Early 21st Century Costume Exhibit Volunteer

Recruited by Lana Bailey and Rebecca Metzger

Source: Animé Los Angeles

Note: Costume College volunteers ran the Costume Repair Station at Animé Los Angeles earlier this year. Animé Los Angeles staff are returning the favor.

It got a lot of chuckles as people quietly browsed the exhibit, reading all of the costumes' signs.