To the queen of hearts, he's the ace of sorrow

[sovay]

I am finally coming out of what was effectively a five-day migraine, with the last two days having been particularly bad, and I wanted to do something nice with the last of the light.

A thing I cannot do without further outlay on my part and/or the labor of other people is convincingly cosplay a dapper dresser from 1824. A thing I can do trivially out of my own closet is at least semi-convincingly cosplay a canonically eccentric dresser from 1940. Fire watch was right out on account of not owning a tin hat, however, and the ordinary mask will be standing in for the gas-mask case of the proper year.



A major impediment to this project was finding stretches of street deserted for at least the minute or so necessary for my face to be safely unmasked. It was like a guerrilla fashion shoot. Experimentally desaturated to see what it did for the patterns.



We did find a nice niche of brick.



And the scaffolding over School Street. Rob kept trying to capture the swing of the coat as I walked. We thought this one succeeded.



This attempt turned to Impressionism, but I like it.

<

There were too many dog-walkers in the community park—and too many of them bare-faced—for me to lose the mask, but Rob likes it.



He thinks this one should be an album cover.



In my office, out of trenchcoat. Nearly all books in this shot are anachronisms, but the 1899 Kipling is doing its best.



Look, I have one grey jacket and it's not my fault if it resets the ensemble to Edwardian.



Always worth checking that north is where you left it.

All pictures taken by spatch and all inspiration by selkie, cf. her newly completed WWII AU "St. Clair and Fleming Do the Blitz." You should also check out yhlee's "Ninefox March," because it took him almost nine years to compose and it was worth the time. I really like this thing of having friends who make art.

Comments

[sovay]

The character in question rebukes and also loses hats.

I want you to know I checked the text over to be sure on this point.

[selkie]

You do thorough character study!
*hugs*

It’s a shame, because you do look AWESOME in a period-relevant hat. But the cry of the migratory Valet Domesticus Hitchensis remains “Gloves! Hat!” long after the first-rate house and high flyer have gone.

[sovay]

But the cry of the migratory Valet Domesticus Hitchensis remains “Gloves! Hat!” long after the first-rate house and high flyer have gone.

I recognize Doylistically he evolved after the novelette had established its terms, but what is Hitchens doing in WWII? Codemaking-or-breaking, with his astronomy and maths?

[selkie]

He divides his time between Baker Street and Hull, and will eventually be an essential forgery-and-menswear part of Operation Mincemeat; he thinks Montagu’s an awfully déclassé dresser and at the weekends he enjoys the sheer celestial cartography one can do in a blackout. When he runs into St. Clair they both have to carefully not know a bunch of things.

On September 4, 1939, he came to supper at the FitzGeorges’ and brought a two-pound tin of tea, a bolt of elastic, and a gross of Kirby grips for Rose’s hair.