Meet Me In The Pumpkin Patch

A Ride With The Naugatuck Railroad Company

Photo credit to Dyzer

Back Row: Juan, Danielle, Leo, Jax, Kaitlyn, Rosie; Front Row: Mina, Aerial, Pixie

Back around mid October, my friend Rosie set up a fashion club meeting at the Railroad Museum of New England located in Thomaston, CT. If you thought I already covered all the historical transportation museums in my blog over the last year, you were wrong. I hadn't been to this one yet!

Thomaston Station is a beautiful example of Victorian architecture that was used regularly for passenger rail between 1881-1958. The original line connected  the north west town of Winsted in Litchfield County all the way to the city of Bridgeport in Fairfield County following along the Naugatuck River.  Unfortunately, the Thomaston station (which is located about halfway between those two towns) fell into disrepair and later fell victim to a fire set by vandals in 1993. Operations on the NEW (as in it changed hands on a legal level) Naugatuck Railroad commenced in 1996, and volunteers have cleaned and stabilized the structure in preparation for a full restoration. This historical line currently operates between Torrington and Waterbury. 

Every weekend in October, the Railroad Museum of New England offered a pumpkin patch excursion 3x a day. This involved riding the train between Thomaston and Waterville (a neighborhood that is part of Waterbury, CT) and being let off at a small patch of grass with some trees and plenty of hay bales, decorations, and small pumpkins. Tickets weren't too expensive...something around $26 for the round trip. It also included fresh local apple cider (or bottled water), and access to a gallery of photos provided by a professional photographer who partnered with the museum for this purpose. I was expecting to take home a pumpkin (which apparently was just for children >_>;) but the beverage and the hi res professional photos were some nice surprises. 

Aerial and Karl managed to get pumpkins and not get chastised about it. Photo credit to Pixie

Even if some people managed to get pumpkins while most of us didn't, we all brought it with our outfits that day. Rosie suggested that we wear Autumn Colors or Halloween themed coordinates and mentioned something about "overseas purple", which is a reference to Japanese brand Atelier Pierrot saying that their purple offerings are very enthusiastically purchased by customers living outside of Japan.  

Juan and Rosie in their autumn colors

I love how Juan and Rosie perfectly complement one another with cream, caramel, and warm brown colors for autumn. I also appreciate the little dashes of red that Juan included with their head bow, scarf, and shoes. It was my idea to have the two of them pose together near the tree, but Pixie is the one who captured all the details!

Kaitlyn, Rosie, Aerial, and Juan

This was apparently Kaitlyn's first time dressing up in the fashion. She wore a completely kuro coordinate. Kuro in Japanese means "black" and is associated with elegance and solemnity. Black is also a great color for the Halloween theme. Aerial wore a royal blue celestial coordinate that she acquired during a visit to Japan this year. It was really neat to see the matching beret and dress details all together. This type of blue is generally good for autumn and winter styles.  It just naturally worked out that Rosie and Juan stood between them so that you could kind of see a visual pattern.  

OVERSEAS PURPLE?? Leo, Mina, Jax, and Danielle Photo credit to PIxie

In this grouping, we kind of took the idea of purple or gurple (grayish purple) to heart. Leo is wearing a black and lavender version of the dress "Magical Milk Cats" by Japanese brand Angelic Pretty. They even had the matching socks and other accessories for this dress. The witch hat and lavender shoes totally take the cake!  Mina made their outfit from scratch! I love how they designed the skirt pattern to alternate the coffin pattern with solid black. It is very striking! Jax is wearing the purple colorway of the dress "Magical Artefact" by Japanese brand Metamorphose. They also paired it with a black blouse and accessories. I am wearing the Witchville Halloween Gothic Set from Chinese indie brand YingLuoFu.  This time I decided to keep the black overskirt at home, as I wanted the purple and navy aspects of the skirt to be really obvious. 

Witchcraft, Magic, and Cats Photo credit to Pixie

In fact, if you take a closer look at the details in our coordinates, Leo, Jax, and I are not only wearing black and purple, but all of our dresses also have cats on them. The cats on Leo's skirt are gray and white and seem to be surrounded by books, potions, and a crystal ball. The imagery is similar in Jax's dress, but the cats are distinctively black and the illustration over all is more realistic looking. The cats on mine are wearing Victorian style clothing while walking around outside of a sleepy windmill town with a giant crescent moon. Also in the streets are what look like disrobed cartoon zombies and there are also faintly menacing eyes in the sky. Is it supposed to be the Witching Hour? I'd say so with these Halloween themed pieces!

Pixie's spider lady outfit Photo credit to Dyzer

Pixie made this black and silver Halloween spider web themed jsk and paired it with a victorian style black shirt and black and silver spider accessories. The way that she added the black panel in the front breaks up the design nicely and the bow at the bottom is visually interesting. I'm sure that bow could be used a lot of different ways--in the hair, up further towards the waist, etc. I love how ultra creative she is when designing her outfits to match the meeting theme!

On the ride back. The pumpkin-less people. Photo credit to Pixie

The AUTUMN colors that were brilliantly displayed outside. I'm not sure who took this one...maybe Rosie?

I promise, the train does not move as fast as the rock wall would have you believe. Also-notice the overhead purple mood lighting

Clearly a staged photo where my bangs are cooperating fully and you can see the details of my outfit in pretty decent lighting

It was nice pretending to have a pumpkin. Photo credit to Pixie

On the way back to the parking lot Photo credit to Pixie

Overall this was a really fun time. I kind of wish we had had more time to hang out in the pumpkin patch taking photos or what have you, but the weather had turned cold and rainy (the umbrella is not simply a conveniently matching prop) and we also didn't want to keep the children or the parents who also took this journey with us waiting too long either.

I am happy I got to wear this coordinate for the second time and enjoyed accessorizing it differently. I am also very glad that I had half a mind to bring that velvet capelet with me, because I truly needed it to stay warm when the rain came. (This meeting was just one week after the extremely hot meeting at the fairy exhibit). One thing that is always true living in New England is if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, because it can and will drastically change, especially in the transitional months in the spring and autumn.