Hello, darling! For the OC outfit doodle ask:☠ OC in what they would wear to a funeral - Dottie in a Victorian mourning gown, please! 💕 Thank you! 💕

My dear Susie!

AND AM ACTUALLY HAPPY YOU BROUGHT ME THIS ASK, because I honestly NEVER had the idea of portraying Dorothea in a Victorian Mourning Gown, so THIS WAS TRULY THE PERFECT OCCASION TO DRAW HER!

So, here you have it.

"GHOST OF A ROSE" robe for Dorothea!!

NOW. A little bit of info behind this piece.

Due to Mourning being such an important period during the Victorian period, certain rules of etiquette were supposed to be followed, along with the fact that the period of mourning depended on the relationship that the person had with the departed.

For Dorothea, since she is mourning her beloved mother, the period of time she would be wearing black clothes would be of one year, and she would be discouraged to participate in social events for at least 6 months.

If one wanted to be technical, the whole ensemble that I depicted here should have been the deepest of black, because that was the only acceptable colour until the half-mourning period began.

However, I have to be honest, for artistic reason, I took a couple of liberties.

I decided to go with a late 1870s-early 1880s cut of the robe because that reflects the time when her mother passed but the capelet is not reflective of that period of time; instead, I went with a capelet that reflects more the late 1850s - early1860s cut.

The reason for it was that, because that particular capelet was Crawford's gift to Dorothea one winter, and ever since her father's death in 1868, she had been holding it for dear life to it, especially after losing her mother as well.As for the colouring, instead of going pitch black, I also took some liberties, especially after seeing a beautiful picture of a dark red/black rose, which was just PERFECT both because the colours were beautiful AND because of all the meaning behind Dorothea starting to wear black with crimson, instead of her signature white and red (spoiler alert, she would not resume wearing white until Emmett's birth).

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT.

I HOPE YOU WILL LIKE IT.

Again, it's just a quick sketch, so forgive the roughness of it all

--Nemo