Lana's Marie Antoinette

I was inspired by another headless Marie Antoinette costume that I saw here and on Make magazine, but I wanted to make the dress extravagant.  I dressed up my hubby as a poor bourgeouis with his eyes plucked out, and we made a dashing pair.

Notes on the construction:  The upper torso is a half-shirt mannequin purchased from a wholesale mannequin vendor.  the back of it was hollow so I filled that in with a pillow and covered the back of the neck with lace.  Two long dowels were secured inside the mannequin and then inserted into a backpack.  The arms were made of long stuffed socks and evening gloves -- I made elbow "joints" so the arms would make a nice shape as they held my head.  Oddly enough, chopsticks wired & glued together worked great for this.  I also packed in crafting wire with the polyfill into the gloves for moldable hands.  The neck gore was created by covering the neck in tacky glue, then arranging fake-blood-soaked blobs of toilet paper to the surface.  The "spine" was a toothpaste cap covered in latex & toilet paper, and the cut skin effect (which didn't turn out as great as I wanted) was made with latex & toilet paper.  The dress was made from scratch with an opening in the front for my head.  In order to get a cheap and easy hoop-skirt look, I used two umbrellas (cut open and put together with a whole in the middle for my head -- giving it an oval shape with more fullness in the back), tucked the handles into the backpack and resting on my shoulders.  It wasn't too uncomfortable (except for the car ride -- plan yours strategically!) once you get the hang of the pose...you can see my learning curve in my photos.   Two musts:  lots of safety pins, and someone to help you get dressed!

We won Best Couples' Costume at the big party we went to at the Hollywood House of Blues!  Definitely worth it for all the hard work.  I stopped counting how many people wanted to take pictures of/with me!