The very last event we did in October 2025 was to attend the Bridgerton Masquerade Ball on Saturday Oct 25, 2025, run by social dance historian Susan De Guardiola and her friend Heath Herel. I was admittedly a little disappointed that I was not allowed to wear anything that would be spooky or remotely Halloween coded for this event, (so I made up for that big time in the next blog post).

Queen Charlotte and Bridgerton are a couple of Netflix series that are classy, romantic, and Regency inspired with both fashion as well as the social/political changes happening in the world at the time. There is a much more diverse cast than history would admit to us, but all of the actors are extremely talented. To even have the opportunity to dress up and learn the dances and be part of their world for just a little bit is an incredible experience. 

Susan De Guardiola is a woman of many talents. She teaches historical dance classes, lectures on dance history, writes papers about dance and delivers them at academic conferences mainly in Europe and America. She also leads balls and social dancing at events in historical costume, the most famous being the President's Remembrance Day Ball in Gettsyburg, PA, every mid-November. With all that in mind, she still went ahead and studied Bridgerton, which by all accounts is a fantastical depiction of what the Regency period fashion and social dances could have been like.

Susan's "Dances of Bridgerton" classes and ball is the real deal. She carefully noted Jack Murphy's original choreography of specific dances in each season of Bridgerton, as well as pre-quel Queen Charlotte and took time before and during the ball to teach attendees the steps as the live string trio performed the songs in real-time.  It was very classy and posh. Beautifully curated snacks like deviled eggs dyed slightly purple, special British cucumber mini-sandwiches, and small themed cookies or pound cake loaves were procured for the occasion. We drank punch and lemonade out of glass cups that had little ribbons of different colors attached to them and every attendee was given a dance card with small silver dangling pencils attached to them to write the name of the person who danced with them for each dance.  There were only about 10 dances on the card, but between dance instruction and then doing the actual dances with your partner, it easily took up the 3 hours allotted for the event. 

Now you might be wondering what we wore to this event. We are actually wearing nearly the exact same outfits that we wore to the Jane Austen Regency Festival in September 2023. This is the historically accurate Regency gown that Pahl had bought for me from a French Atelier on Etsy for the festival. It seemed over the top at the time, especially in Bath, UK because some people at the ball were wearing much simpler cotton gowns. However, after season 3 of Bridgerton came out, and all the female characters were ooh-ing and aah-ing about gowns from the boutiques in France, it all made sense. The only new additions to our outfits are that Pahl had his tail coat dyed a dark wine color (it was originally "burgundy" but it looked more red than anything), and we were required to bring and wear masquerade masks for at least half of the event.

My mask is a red embroidered over black lace mask that I was able to comfortably wear directly over my glasses. I think the "lace" would have been too scratchy of a material for me to tolerate directly on my skin anyway. The mask was $7.99 on Amazon, when I purchased it 3 years ago for the first edition of the Nevermore Masquerade Ball. Pahl on the other hand actually made his own paper mache mask in the style of Louis XIV, the Sun King, who created the Palace of Versailles during his reign. He had made this mask a few years before this event. He really likes masks and has quite a collection of them from characters representing the Commedia della Arte. 

We took this fun masked group shot with Deb and Angelica, two other students who studied in the Dances of Bridgerton class that we learned the dances with. The very cool thing about this photo is that Nina made 3 out of the 4 dresses pictured. Deb and Angelica commissioned Nina to make their gowns adjustable sizing, and of course Nina made her own dress as well. I love how colorful everyone else is compared to me and Pahl's deep burgundy and black. 

If you really want to get a feel for what it was like on the dance floor, check out this video that Heath took during the final "Harmony" mixer. (We did it twice---once with masks and once without). I honestly love the chaos moments where you sprint across the circle to find a new partner. Generally a man is always a lead, but some women are also leads. It can be important to pay attention to who is available. At no point does anyone get suddenly left out of of the dance when switching partners. We're all in the chaos mixer together!

I really enjoyed the event and I am so happy that there will be another one soon. The event is slated for Saturday March, 28, 2026, with an hour of dance instruction in the afternoon before the ball. There are also other prep classes for the ball and completely unrelated but equally fun courses available to learn from Susan. You can see her calendar of events here. 

I honestly was so impressed with how everyone dressed up for the occasion. At class, we are all wearing casual clothes, but when everyone was dressed up, they all looked very different! (I myself tend to dress as a pastel fever dream for class, so I'm sure others were surprised in the exact same manner). Everything about the event screamed classy from the food, serving ware, professional photographer, decor and the live string trio. If you want an elevated (but completely non-intoxicated) fancy dress up ball with instruction to specific choreography to re-live moments from Bridgerton---this is the ball for you!

One of the meetings I planned for my fashion community in October 2025 was a meeting I refer to as "Clown Around City Point". The goal was to dress as a cirque persona while walking a gentle nature trail located in the City Point neighborhood of New Haven, CT. I didn't know exactly who would come out to this, as I wasn't sure how popular clown looks would be with my local community. I also didn't know who would be up for doing so on a gentle nature trail abutting a salt marsh. All I knew was that it was going to be an awesome photoshoot, so I asked my friend Alan Kendzior if he would like to accompany us on our adventure and take photos, a role of which he immediately accepted months in advance. 

The official name of the trail we were on is the Long Wharf Nature Preserve, and it stretches from the Sound School parking lot all the way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It is a short, gentle walk that literally goes under Interstate 95 in one part as well as meeting with the edge of the salt marsh in another. Except for the brief moment where you actually go under I-95 and the highway noise is a little intense, the rest of the trail is calming and restorative. I used to walk on it in normal clothes when one of my college friends lived down that way. Peak Connecticut autumn in mid-October was definitely going to be the perfect time to do this meeting. 

When I told folks what to wear for the meeting, I initially envisioned cirque performers from 19th century French and Italian circus advertisement posters. I encouraged the use of stripes, polka dots, and diamonds in the attire, and encouraged everyone to craft a persona and bring a prop. And to wear sturdy shoes!! I didn't want ANY accidents on the trail, so if the shoes didn't quite fit the outfit, that was okay because safety was my #1 priority. 

Aerial wore a popcorn themed outfit complete with popcorn skirt and matching bag! She also did her makeup to look like a sweet and friendly clown!  And her prop was a giant bubble wand---so fun!! Her partner Carl went with green and blue as his main colors and a matching striped top hat and bow tie. 

Jax made their own striped skirt complete with dangling gold star trim on the hem and paired it with black and white diamond socks, a black blouse, and a carousel purse. They also did their own clown makeup, something that I learned that they were somewhat of an expert in, as they practiced many different styles in the past. 

Barbara was kind of a cross between lion tamer and ring leader, with her gorgeous vintage purple with blue stars dress with lions jumping through hoops in the design, matching contrasting neck ruff, a black waist cincher belt, a purple adjustable petticoat that she decided to wear on top of the skirt, black and white striped socks and top hat, and white boots with hand painted cheetah print motifs on it. Her prop was a cane with a lion's head. 

I was basically the goth clown that scares away anyone normal from harassing the group. I decided to go for an ouji style look for this meeting, and while it took me about five minutes to put my entire outfit on, the makeup took by itself took over an hour. The props that I brought included a hula hoop and a black cat hand puppet (which looks convincingly real, almost like Salem in Sabrina the Teenage Witch). 

I had the perfect dress and everything for this event, but then there was the nature trail aspect and necessity of wearing sturdy shoes and layers to prevent from insects as well as poisonous plants (like poison ivy), so I switched to a simple black and white diamond centered ouji outfit. It's almost like the black version of my White Rabbit coordinate from the Alice Tea back in April 2025, but with a simpler outer coat and much more functional boots that I would not worry about getting mud or dirt on. The outer coat and shoes are from Killstar (a British online gothic clothing and lifestyle store), the blouse with the giant bow is from Lady Sloth (a Polish indie brand), the pants are from Putamayo (Japanese brand), the socks are from Dandy Puppeteer (a local vendor specializing in whimsical accessories and socks that fit most leg sizes), and the hat is from Fox Cherry, which is a Chinese indie brand. You might be wondering why I added red as my makeup accent color if there is no red anywhere else in my outfit, but you would be missing out on my purse. 

We really had a lot of fun clowning around in our personas. Here are more pictures from the event!

We had such a blast clowning around and since there were only five of us, we all fit in one car to stop by the food trucks located on nearby Long Wharf drive. If you can imagine a one way street lined with about 15 food trucks on each side, that's it! It is mostly Mexican style cuisine with other Latin American foods. Barbara and Jax knew their way around the trucks as they both worked nearby, and Aerial gave good suggestions on what I should order, as I was unfamiliar with a lot of the foods offered. We ate our food together on a picnic blanket Jax had in their car facing the ocean.  I am so glad there were other folks who wanted to clown around and also that Alan was there to capture all the special moments.