She Fights Like A Girl

CORSETS AND STRIPED STOCKINGS: OUTFITTING THE ASYLUM FOR WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS by She Fights Like A Girl

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This article was longer than intended and image-heavy, so it’s been split into two parts.

PART V: AN ASYLUM MUSICAL

And now we're back to the relatively recent past, when this blog was in its infancy and the fandom couldn't decide whether to stick with the forum or run rampant on Tumblr. Fight Like A Girl (the album) was still being recorded, but Emilie did a few live dates Down Under and decided to feature the title song from the unfinished album.

To my understanding, the Harvest Festival was another one of those concerts where the show was considerably downsized because of the cost of shipping props and set pieces. But where the South American tours hadn’t pulled back in the wardrobe department, the Harvest festival did. Emilie and the Crumpets performed in one costume for the entire set. But to make up for the lack of glam, EA debuted the first costume of the FLAG era.

This costume was worn for the cover art of Fight Like A Girl, and acted as the signature corset for the very first Fight Like A Girl World Tour (2012). 

Speaking of the 2012 FLAG World Tour! While there were a lot of changes from The Door Tour and Harvest Festival, this tour is probably best remembered as a transition phase between eras. There were new costumes, but… the Rat Queen still introduced the show with 4 o’Clock. There were new set dressings, but… the shadow scrim was still main stage center. The new corset was mixed in with the Rat Queen ensemble and the structure of the show hadn’t changed terribly. New, but… kinda not?

Except for that Warrior Mohawk, of course.

This is the only tour where Emile wore a mohawk for the entirety(-slash-majority) of the show. Later concerts would see her removing it after the third song. There was some slight skepticism in the fandom with its debut, sparking discourse about everything from cultural appropriation to thematic relevance, but EA didn’t make much comment on the criticism.

Another costume that debuted on this tour was the MC of the Ophelia Gallery, who had his own brand-new number: Girls! Girls! Girls!

And as for its history...

(My best guess is that this photo originated in 2009, based on her hair.)

This character is a hint at the structure of the tour (and album) to come, where it would be less about the mad girls existing inside the Asylum and more about the story of how they got there, and what happened once they were interned. Allow me to stray from the costuming topic for just a moment…

A TANGENT: OF STAGE SHOWS AND ASYLUM CONTINUITY Spoiler filled ramblings of a long-time fan.

I’ve got a running theory that The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, in all its forms, runs in parallel to the concerts. But they match each other in reverse. [Spoilers for the book to follow.]

Emilie’s first concert of the Opheliac brand was in a small venue in Chicago, alongside Lady Joo Hee. In The Asylum… book, Emily-with-a-y’s final days in the Asylum were spent with Sachiko (a character based on and formerly named Joo Hee). 

The Opheliac shows of 2007-2011 were all about the women in an Asylum singing songs and welcoming others home. Cannibals, ballerinas, pyrate captains, nymphomanics -- they all ran rampant with no apparent oversight except from Emilie herself. Rats crept and crawled onstage unbothered; toys, crumpets, and cupcakes were in abundance, often served alongside “tea,” and there isn’t a single cell door in sight.

Especially in the earliest days of the concerts, the set design had an emphasis on appearing hand-made -- not only because it was, but because it should be for these girls. This was the world EA branded for herself: a world of freedom, without judgement, earned by their own hands.

In The Asylum… book, after the Inmates take over and kill the doctors, this is very much what they do: impersonate medical professionals and welcome sick and not-so-sick girls home to protect them, nurture them, and give them the best life that the Victorian Age fails to do. They take over the Asylum and make it their own.

Then in the FLAG performances (2012-2014), the storytelling shifts. EA’s Asylum world is no longer loosely themed with inmates running amok, but adheres to a more rigid storytelling structure, detailing the struggles and despair of the girls locked up in The Asylum(-with-a-capital-T). It mirrors the bulk of the content in The Asylum… book. The carefree, whimsical stage dressings shift to bars -- a representation of the cells and gates in The Asylum. There might be a bear tied to a dreary grey harpsichord; you might even see a single rat scratching about. But they don’t have dominion here. There’s no freedom. Just the story of the girls trapped behind the bars.

And now we’re stalled on both sides of the street. We’ve met in the middle. The concerts started at the end of the book, and ended at the beginning. 

Ok, I’ll put my soapbox away. Let’s get back on track.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Where were we?

Oh, yes: Girls! Girls! Girls! and new costumes.

So let’s jump forward a little more, because there isn’t much else to say about Emilie’s costume style in the 2012 FLAG World Tour. Moving on to the 2013 Fight Like A Girl: North American Tour (and following European and Australian tours), a brand new show was brought to the stage. Full new stage set-up, new costumes, and a full new setlist. 

A costume I’ll be referring to as the “armored corset” replaced the moth-eaten FLAG ensemble in the opening number. Both Maggots and Veronica were given new costumes as well, replacing the costumes they had worn for years. 

The show design of this tour had Emilie in the armored corset with the mohawk for the two opening numbers, Fight Like A Girl and Time for Tea. The mohawk and the armored plates on her chest and hip were removed during the 4 o’Clock Reprise, leaving her without her armor for What Will I Remember? as the narrative moves back to the beginning of the story, before the “Uprising.”

On the subject of the corset: structurally, it was outfitted with snaps to attach the armor and allow for easy removal (see corset detail above, bottom right). The mohawk proved a more difficult challenge to remove, as it was securely clipped, pinned, and secured into EA’s hair. This ended up being corrected in the redesign that produced Mohawk 2.0.

Back to the show! By the time we get to Veronica’s Dominant fan dance, EA has removed the armor corset completely in the interim to prepare for the Girls! Girls! Girls! costume change. After Scavenger, the entire cast changes into Asylum Inmate Rags to perform Gaslight and The Key, and then changes back into full costume for the finale. Emilie wears the full FLAG ensemble from previous tours to close out the show, with varying headdresses. 

But I’m skipping over something important.

The Scavenger.

Inspired by Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, The Scavenger, a vulture-esque representation of Dr. Greavsely, appeared onstage for Scavenger. 

The Scavenger was usually worn by Maggots as part of a stilt-walking performance, but if the venue couldn’t or wouldn’t allow for stunts onstage, Emilie would appear alone in the costume for the number. 

Scavenger has plenty of different “shows” (A show, B show, and C show for my theme park friends), with “A Show” being Captain Maggot on stilts.

“B Show” would be Emilie performing as the Scavenger, due to venue restrictions. This was actually the way Scavenger debuted, until Maggot’s first performance later in the tour. (See pictures and even more info here.)

“C Show” would be Moth’s performance in the final set of Fight Like A Girl tours, as seen below:

(There’s also “D Show,” (ha) which is this random dude performing as The Scavenger. I’ve yet to figure this out, but my guess is it was a technician stepping in at the last moment or a friend of EA from Oakland.)

Last, but not least, are the Asylum Rags. You’d think there wouldn’t be much to say here, but there is. Click on the continue link below to learn more about tattered costumes and the rest of the FLAG era, because Tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE.

Fly back… PART I: Enchant and the Faerie Queene PART II: Drowning Ophelia PART III: Vecona, Seamstress of the Asylum PART IV: Wayward Victorian Girls

Remember to visit Part III and enter our giveaway! Ends 12/1/19.

[SEE ALL CREDITS AND SOURCES HERE.]

CORSETS AND STRIPED STOCKINGS: OUTFITTING THE ASYLUM FOR WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS by She Fights Like A Girl

These articles are best viewed on desktop, but are mobile friendly. Please excuse any strange formatting on your phone browser or the Tumblr app.

PART IV: WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS

The Gate Tour, which featured a short set of European-exclusive dates in late 2008, was the first notable tone shift in the Opheliac tours. With Vecona’s departure from all things Asylum after The Plague Tour, new costumes were debuted and the Crumpet line-up changed. The Naughty Veronica, Captain Maggot, the Blessed Contessa, and Aprella became the main line-up through 2009 (with some appearances by Little Miss Sugarless).

Most notably, we see the introduction of the third white heart corset, as Vecona’s costumes had been auctioned to fans on eBay. 

More detail on this look later. 

Then there’s a one-tour-only appearance of The Gate “corset” (a possibly-pleather torso wrap that went over a corset).

And how could I forget? There’s also the Rat Queen herself!

While this particular costume has a deeper history than what I’ll talk about (which you can read about here), it’s most indicative of the tone shift in shows. “4 o’Clock” had been performed in almost every tour previously, but this was the first instance of a song being assigned a character. Not just Emilie singing it and the Crumpets playing along in their on-stage world, but the image of a rat crawling out of the Asylum; Emilie embodying a pivotal character from her book and letting the rats out to play. There’s structure here, matched with a more solid sort of storytelling.

The style of the Rat Queen changes from tour to tour. The mask-slash-headpiece gained more decorations, sparkles, and stones as tours went on, and the original corset with white stripes and a white heart (seen above) was later toned down to a grey-only design (seen below). Ear headbands from previous tours were used, as well as the rat tail; decorative sleeve parts were changed and remade between tours.

The following tour was called “The Gate II,” as it almost immediately followed the former and didn’t need much distinction. Some pictures from that tour are featured above. There isn’t much notable change in costume design during this tour, but it is the beginning of what I’ll call SparkleGate, because everything that could go through a Bedazzler did.

Then, in late 2009, the Asylum as we knew it was turned upside down by a rather sudden shift in management. Emilie split with Trisol Records and thus ended a very large and lengthy chapter of her career, going on to re-release Opheliac under a new label, The End Records. This double disk re-release came complete with a new photo shoot by Don Scott, usually known as “The End Photoshoot,” or “Opheliac Industrial.”

The same outfit was featured in book readings preceding her next tour, Opheliac’s first North and South American tour, “The Key.”

The overall design concept becomes considerably more glam (see: SparkleGate) than steampunk-goth, while the set remained relatively the same as tours past. The Bloody Crumpets continued wearing costumes similar or the same as tours past. It’s not until Opheliac’s final tour, The Door, that we see the full sparkle of the Asylum’s glam phase.

The SparkleGlam Corset. Or, as it was more commonly referred to, the KinKats Ensemble. 

Again, the individual parts that make up this ensemble aren’t new. In typical EA style, this corset is a piece from former tours that was re-purposed and accosted with Swarovski crystals. 

This full ensemble made its debut in two parts: the KinKats photoshoot and the Medical Burlesque Performance. (See the whole burlesque performance here.) Fans who’ve been here for a while might remember this as the pasties and/or “GlitterTits” phase (roughly 2010 to 2011), when the fandom was in a constant turmoil over Twitter Rants and Playboy blurbs. 

By the time this ensemble it made its way off magazine covers and to stage, it had changed slightly in the bra, accessory, and wig department, and would continue to do so between tour legs (European, South and North American). But it was always the same general idea: pink, sparkly glam-rock. With really tall hats.

The rest of the stage costumes remained largely the same, featuring the Rat Queen (for the final time) and the white heart corset (#3). The Door Tour was advertised as the final tour for Opheliac and became something of a worldwide event, performed in separate legs across the world. By the official end of it, there was only one place left to go.

Australia.

Emilie was invited to perform in The Harvest Festival “Down Under” after The Door Tour had come to a close. The set ended up being a majority of Opheliac songs despite the record’s retirement from tour, but there was one new song that did debut:

Fight Like A Girl.

Up next... PART V: AN ASYLUM MUSICAL

Fly back... PART I: Enchant and the Faerie Queene PART II: Drowning Ophelia PART III: Vecona, Seamstress of the Asylum

Remember to visit Part III and enter our giveaway! Ends 12/1/19.

[SEE ALL CREDITS AND SOURCES HERE.]