CRC#7: Fashion in Fantasy w/ Alyc Helms, Marie Brennan, and Rowenna Miller

So. This post is… late. Quite a bit late. Almost half a year late.

Uh… sorry? (Formatting takes a very long time. I got a puppy. She doesn’t like the “very long time” thing.)

In any case, we have a belter of a chat for you today! We invited Alyc Helms & Marie Brennan (who write together as M.A. Carrick) and Rowenna Miller to the Inn to talk about the importance of clothing and fashion in fantasy.

If you’ve never read any of our Common Room Conversation features before, then the jist of it is that we basically just get a bunch of awesome authors into a chat server to nerd out about a topic for an hour or so. And this one is no different!

So are you ready to talk sleeves, codpieces, Thirst, and why corsets were NOT FUCKING TORTURE DEVICES? Well… lets dive in!

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Rowenna Miller
I would happily send you all the pie, but I suspect it doesn’t travel well…

Alyc Helms
I would be very surprised if there wasn’t leftover pie here. (Marie, is there leftover pie?)

Marie Brennan
We managed to leave most of it with my brother.

Rowenna Miller
Half a pie came home with me despite my best efforts.
I TRIED to pawn it off and everything.

Alyc Helms
Heh. We should have guessed that a chat the day after feastday would be Food in Fantasy rather than Fashion in Fantasy.

Sara
I completely forgot about Thanksgiving tbh. 😂

Editor’s Note: …Yeah. Hey, I told you this episode was late. (I’m so sorry, guys)

Rowenna Miller
Haha Food and Fashion intersect in many ways…bibs…aprons…stretchy pants…

Marie Brennan
Stains.

Alyc Helms
Very true! I was thinking about bringing up situational fashion (funereal, wedding, pregnancy) but professional outfits and food/cooking/food production related clothing is also an extensive topic.

Rowenna Miller
Ooooh yes. Whenever I do hearth cooking demos I’m reminded of the ways cooking and clothing can be related! Spark resistant wool, aprons standing up to rough washing…
And in plenty of eras gowns adjust for both very large meals and pregnancy… 😝

Alyc Helms
One of my favorite tropes I see in Asian dramas is the ‘man tying back his sleeves to show his forearms so he can cook’. It’s like… arm porn and competence porn at the same time. And it’s just done with a big looping cord, but it’s so… visually interesting.

Marie Brennan
And with nice, lean forearms ^_^
</shallow>

Sara
I think it’s the second time arm porn is mentioned in one of those convos and I like this trend.

Alyc Helms
I love me a good forearm.

Marie Brennan
I’m reminded of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel trilogy convincing a great many women of my acquaintance that vambraces are the sexiest piece of armor.

Alyc Helms
I mean… that’s not wrong.

Sara
Hahaha!
Rowenna! Speaking of era gowns, do y’all have a specific eras/geographical areas you draw the most inspiration from for Fashion Goodness in your stories?

Rowenna Miller
I do! It’s not strictly historically accurate in the progression of fashion (I let earlier stuff exist alongside later stuff BECAUSE I CAN muwahaha), but the aesthetic is very 1770s-1790s.
Bonkers elaborate sacque gowns, chemise gowns, cheeky little jackets, ridiculous hats. Much color. All the color. (I love color in a historical garment!)

Marie Brennan
The “BECAUSE I CAN” mentality is why in Lady Trent’s world, there is no mid-Victorian fashion, only late Victorian fashion. I swear the mid-Victorian period is the single ugliest phase in all of English clothing.
(And I say this as somebody whose flat hair and sloping shoulders make me ideally suited to mid-Victorian styles.)

Alyc Helms
I once had a person at Dickens fair tell me (as a compliment) that I looked hideously Victorian.

Rowenna Miller
Ha! I’ll take 1840s-50s over the 1830s. That hair looks abusive to the wearer and the wacky symmetry of the gowns…why!?
It’s almost like by being so ugly it loops back around on itself to…no, it’s still ugly.
But give me a bustle or Natural Form and swoooon.

Alyc Helms
Though, hilariously, the inspiration for the panel sash that Vraszenian women wear in our books is pretty much directly taken from an 1860s belt sash pattern.
Natural form is my catnip

Marie Brennan
Just goes to show how arbitrary fashion is — how much we can just kind of collectively decide “this is what looks good” and then a little while later, NOPE.

Rowenna Miller
Natural form….oh the DRAPING and gorgeousness.
It is so arbitrary! There are some things that just don’t stick around and you wonder…did you realize quickly how weird this looks? Did enough people nope out? Does it turn out it’s just not that comfortable? (I have OPINIONS about how short-lived 1910s long line corsets were…because sitting in them is just. Weird. I imagine women being all “eh, pass on this.”)

Marie Brennan
There’s a line in a Doctor Who episode where they’re in the future and a robot that’s dressing one of the characters declares, “Never pair black with a color. It makes the color look cheap and the black look boring.” Which is a completely plausible-sounding argument! . . . but also not an opinion we share right now. I really liked that line, because it was such a swift nod toward changing aesthetics.
Long corsets — Liza Picard has a great line in (I think) Dr. Johnson’s London about how in that period, the corset was supposed to descend “to the lady’s honour,” and how uncomfortable it must have been to sit down and have your corset jab you in the honour.

Alyc Helms
For the Rook & Rose stuff, the men’s fashion started out a bit constrained because we had the Rook character — who was inspired by/influenced by the Scarlet Pimpernel, Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman, and just that general great coat/frock coat with high boots and a waistcoat look.
And that puts you in a particular period that you have to consider when you branch out to what everyone else is wearing (though we played around a LOT more with women’s fashion)

Marie Brennan
The Rook may also have a biiiiiiiiit of Assassin’s Creed in him >_>

Alyc Helms
Yes, cause… sexy hood.

Rowenna Miller
ON MY HONOUR…yes to that observation on long corsets! You have to sort of lean forward or it’s awkward, which is so unusual for corsetry in my experience, it’s largely actually quite comfortable if made and worn correctly!
I do love a great coat. It’s a Great Coat.

Alyc Helms
Ahahahah. Yes.

Rowenna Miller
The only justification ever needed for a great coat is ‘because it’s a great coat.”

Alyc Helms
Anything that swishes from the waist down has my enthusiastic approval. I think that’s why I’ve gone so around the bend for the Xianxia stylings in C-Dramas. Swishy belted robes ftw.
Full skirts.

Marie Brennan
Our friend Wendy Shaffer, posting about The Untamed, said that all those swishy robes are like a visual essay in where Western men’s fashion has gone sadly, sadly wrong.

Rowenna Miller
Oh yes. The lines of those are just lovely and just the right amount of swish.

Marie Brennan
And the thing about a great coat is, you get the swish, BUT ALSO the tall boots. <fans self>
(Hello, welcome to Fashion Thirst in Fantasy . . .)

Sara
Hiu is going to be Very Snarky about why all the CRCs I do are thirsty.
BUT IT’S NOT MY FAULT I’M BLAMELESS HERE!

Editor’s Note: Yup. Sure. 👀

Rowenna Miller
I’m always heartened to see men’s fashion pushing back on the constraints of the last two hunderd years. Because truly they’ve been robbed.
We take full responsibility, Sara.

Marie Brennan
In fairness to you, you’ve asked like one question so far. We’re the ones who keep rambling onward until we get to the thirst.

Sara
Oh PLEASE ramble away, this is great! ❤️
(You guys are touching on topics I hadn’t even considered!)

Alyc Helms
Yeah. In color as well as cut. Like, we live in a time where just about any color is possible, and so many textures and weights and drapes… so much to work with and we got so boring.

Marie Brennan
Which — speaking of thirst — has actually created challenges for us narratively, when we want the clothing to really highlight the sex appeal of a male character. How do you do that, when our culture has basically reduced it to “he looks good in a tux?”

Rowenna Miller
I feel like, maybe partially because clothing is so accessible, we’ve largely as a culture stopped considering the ways in which we can treat everyday pieces as works of art and craftsmanship and…so much more fun to be had there with some color and texture.

Sara
Body paint is a great garment, Marie. ❤️

Alyc Helms
But I think what’s fun about fantasy fashion (especially the further away you break from historical fiction) is the way you can use things like color and available materials juxtaposed with magic manufacturing to do a lot of worldbuilding beyond just what people are wearing.

Rowenna Miller
Ooooh dang Marie, right! And that people historically highlighted various attributes they were thirsty for and leaning into, ah, learning to appreciate those!

Marie Brennan
Oh, the Tudor codpieces . . .
Which got so much funnier to me when I realized they got used as purses.

Alyc Helms
Goes back to forearm thirst

Rowenna Miller
Like men’s calves in the breeches era. You can totally see in prints and fashion plates how they’re painting those stockings on ON PURPOSE to show off the calf muscles.

Marie Brennan
The TV series of Horatio Hornblower has a moment where he’s supposed to go to a fancy party, and you see him stuffing his stockings with straw, then putting a second pair on over the first to smooth out the texture. Because his calves are inadequate on their own.

Alyc Helms
Yes, and then stuffing their stockings with sawdust packs to give them the calves they don’t have.

Rowenna Miller
And very fitted over the thighs…meanwhile the asses are saggy baggy nothing to see here.

Marie Brennan
Hah, Alyc and I went to the same place.

Rowenna Miller
Any era, any focal point, we will find a way to fake it.

Alyc Helms
I love when you see those breeches where they look so fitted in the front… only to discover that’s because all the excess is gathered in the back to create that look.
Which is then covered by your lovely long frock coat.

Rowenna Miller
YEP. Because if you don’t, it’s splitsville. 😝

Marie Brennan
There’s a reason you almost never get any shots on TV of those Regency gentlemen from behind, with their coats off.

Rowenna Miller
It was not an ass era.

Alyc Helms
It reminds me of when I finally learned about armscyes (need to go check the spelling on that) and how you needed to have small/carefully tailored ones there in the days before stretch fabrics.

Marie Brennan
I think you spelled it right.

Rowenna Miller
Yes! Armscyes are the fiddliest thing to fit! And the whole process is entirely different in pre-contemporary stuff. If you sew, you’re probably used to setting in sleeves stitched in a circle all at once…but setting them in a historical gown is this game of bits at a time and raw edges eventually covered by facings. Otherwise, it won’t fit.

Alyc Helms
Yes!

Rowenna Miller
And the fit itself — what is fitted, what isn’t, what shape does clothing suggest or what posture it moves the body into….it’s kinda masterful, really.
(Like you said earlier, the Victorian sloped shoulders! Comapred to say, late 18th century with very upright and narrow backed and shoulders back looks. Clothing changing the posture and perception of the wearer.)

Marie Brennan
The posture thing — I remember the costumer responsible for the “original practices” productions at the Globe talking about there being characteristic ways the actors would tend to accidentally damage their costumes, because they were trying to move like modern people, and it turns out people did things like sit down differently in the Elizabethan period.

Alyc Helms
One of the things (I think at Marie’s suggestion) that we have in our books is how important sleeve fashion is. But the difficulty with sewing sleeves also leads to the whole removable sleeve situation.
Apparently, C-drama actors go through serious training to learn to move properly in their hanfu. And one of the complaints I see about idol dramas from people who are far more in the know than I am is that the actors don’t have enough/the proper training.

Marie Brennan
Of course, that kind of thing is incredibly hard to convey in prose.

Alyc Helms
So they don’t look/move right to people who watch a lot of historical dramas.

Sara
Do you ever try to make a piece of clothing you’re describing in your books?

Marie Brennan
. . . Alyc is currently sitting in my den, about fifteen feet from the piles of fabric and cut pieces waiting to become costumes.

Rowenna Miller
Oh pretties!!

Sara
Ooohhh!

Alyc Helms
We have to finish the book before I can even think about making them. But I did pattern out our ideas back when we first developed the fashion, just to make certain they’d actually work as clothing.

Sara
That’s VERY exciting!

Marie Brennan
It’s funny, though. I did events for the Memoirs of Lady Trent in Victorian costume, because for a couple of years I toured with Mary Robinette Kowal, who did her Glamourist Histories events in Regency dress. But it would feel substantially weirder for me to show up to a reading in Liganti or Vraszenian clothing.

Rowenna Miller
I’ve never made anything from my books on purpose…but I did end up doing a variation on Viola’s pink gown (because I found OBNOXIOUS pink silk and had to) and then made a blue worsted work gown recently and realized…definitely described this in the book like some kind of clothing premonition.

Alyc Helms
I want to make Vargo’s patchwork dressing gown for myself.

Marie Brennan
You can make that out of all the scraps left behind by other projects. 😀

Alyc Helms
Oooh. I love it when you find the right fabric for a thing you’ve been envisioning.

Rowenna Miller
The next book is c 1910 so I had to made some Edwardian stuff to play with…for research! Right?…right? (not procrastination, RESEARCH.)

Sara
nodnod, of course.

Marie Brennan
Rowenna, when people asked Mary Robinette what she was going to write next, I may have re-pitched ait to her as “what clothing do you want to wear for future book events?”

Rowenna Miller
That’s….that’s not an entirely wrong way to think about it, Marie…

Alyc Helms
I think the biggest challenge in recreating is not the sewing, but the decor. Like Edwardian beading/embroidery is my favorite, but you can’t just buy fabric with it (or at least, not unless you’re paying like $100/yard or something).

Marie Brennan
Right — our fabric options are often sadly limited.
And most of the trim you can buy at a normal fabric store is just not worth it.

Rowenna Miller
Oh dang, yes. There are people doing GORGEOUS work with embroidery machines, but that’s outside my skill set at this point (and too rich for my pocketbook!)

Alyc Helms
I mean, in some ways not because they can get so fancy with brocades and the like… but in terms of beading and embroidery in particular (and lacemaking)

Marie Brennan
I’m about to embark upon an adventure in tablet weaving to create a strap for something, but Alyc, you are not allowed to commandeer me for trim-weaving.

Rowenna Miller
At least a lot of the eras I dig do a ton of self-trim, but even the fabric is limited. We have solid taffetas and beyond that…it gets either rough to find or very pricey.

Alyc Helms
(tatting? I feel like tatting is only used to refer to grannies on a tuffet by the hearth)

Rowenna Miller
Some of the most difficult to find are working-class fibers — I’d kill for some linsey woolsey! I’d just love to see what working with it is like but OOF finding it!

Alyc Helms
My biggest complaint is that Joann’s bought everyone else out, so all the interesting fabric stores I used to go to are gone. And I’m no longer near L.A.’s garment district to go to the warehouses down there.

Rowenna Miller
YEP.

Alyc Helms
And for the most part, I just can’t shop fabric online because I need to be able to see the drape and get the hand feel.

Rowenna Miller
So what’s your favorite garment you’ve included in your books so far?

Alyc Helms
I think the Night of Bells costumes for Vargo and Renata.

Marie Brennan
. . . Vargo’s Night of Bells costume, yes >_>

Sara
(yes)

Marie Brennan
(I knew we would both answer with that)
Though Ren has a green one early on in The Liar’s Knot that I would totally wear — green is my favorite color.

Sara
What’s yours, Rowenna?

Alyc Helms
I mean, I pretty shamelessly describe things I would want to wear for most of the characters. Though… a character that shows up in book 3 has an outfit that… it hits that ‘hideously victorian’ vibe.

Rowenna Miller
Love that! (Green is an EXCELLENT color!)
I did a military-uniform-influenced riding habit in book three that’s a Goal Project for someday–there was this fad for them c 1780 and they’re just a delight.

Alyc Helms
Oooh. Yes.

Rowenna Miller
I just love thinking about all the layers that go into clothing, too–that there’s more than the outer piece
I find underwear awesome. Linens are wonderful.

Marie Brennan
Right! I love that you pay attention to how people wear linens under their clothes.

Alyc Helms
Yeah, and the way you can put a character into dishabille.
If you have those layers

Sara
(back to thirst)

Alyc Helms
(and we’re back to… that)

Marie Brennan
Yesssssssss. The more complex clothing is, the more you can get characters into a state of half-dress, which is . . . yes, we’re back to thirst.

Alyc Helms
Hehe, yeas.
We do spend a lot of time looking for ways to get Vargo’s coat off…

Rowenna Miller
Yes, Alyc! And the various meanings of undress and social acceptability. Who you will see in undress wear–it can tell about social norms and how close characters are.

Marie Brennan
It bugged me SO MUCH when I watched The Tudors and nobody had any linens on, because HBO needed to be able to get to The Naked straightaway.

Sara
I do spend a lot of time yelling “strip strip STRIP” at Vargo (well, my Kindle, but…)

Alyc Helms
YES. And also even ‘what is acceptable at home’ vs. ‘what is acceptable in public’

Rowenna Miller
Same with Bridgerton…no linens and then they complained about the corsets chafing and WELL. Well this is what you get!

Alyc Helms
Hahahah. Right?

Marie Brennan
The touch of emotional intimacy you can get when someone doesn’t have their coat or their gloves or their wig or whatever on . . .

Rowenna Miller
Yes! Receiving a dear friend even though you’re only in small clothes and a dressing gown, because they’re your best friend. Turning away someone else because your hair isn’t dressed yet. 😄

Alyc Helms
And it just… looks wrong. Like when people have tie on sleeves with the chemise/shirt underneath sewn as part of the sleeve rather than something underneath that’s peeking through. That looks wrong. (thinking particularly of slash and puff designs)

Rowenna Miller
Right?!

Alyc Helms
And also even things like if something ties in front for easy access vs. tying in back or the sides meaning you need help getting into it. (or like kimono obi tied in front or back denoting how sexually available you are.)

Marie Brennan
I think that specific example isn’t quite historically accurate, but the general idea applies.
If you can’t get dressed on your own, that’s a statement of wealth and power right there.

Alyc Helms
yeah, I wasn’t certain on the obi thing.

Rowenna Miller
Or that you’re never expecting to live alone, ever!

Marie Brennan
Which, frankly, most people didn’t!

Rowenna Miller
Which…I mean…historically, that’s a thing! Your sisters or mom or whatever help and then you’re married or living with another family…

Marie Brennan
Exactly.
It’s very peculiar, how many of us live alone these days.

Alyc Helms
But also… chemises and the like protect your nice outer clothes from your gross body sweat… but then there are outer things that protect your nice outer clothes from mud and the elements.

Rowenna Miller
I love that in many eras even when adult’s clothes close in the front, kids’ close in the back. There is a dependence required there, and also they can’t strip themselves as easily.

Alyc Helms
Omg, I love the idea of little regency mooplings flinging off their clothes and running through Hyde Park in their skivvies.

Marie Brennan
We really underestimate how important it was to protect your clothing. That shit was expensive and labor-intensive and laundry was not done by machine, so anything you could do to keep your clothes relatively clean was good.
And then wash the layers that are more robust and easily cleansed.

Rowenna Miller
Exactly! And laundry was a rough deal on linens, so they were constructed to withstand it.

Marie Brennan
Plus, there have apparently been studies that show you smell far better if you wear clean clothes and just rub your body down with a dry flannel than if you wash your body but wear dirty clothes.

Alyc Helms
Yeah. And also, not having colorfast dyes means you have to take bleeding (not of the bodily variety) into account.

Rowenna Miller
And so many gown or suit materials are just no launderable–you can’t dunk silk or wool in most cases anyway. So you brush and spot treat those, and boil the crap out of linen.

Alyc Helms
I’m feeling called out by the ‘wear clean clothes’ study.

Marie Brennan
Aren’t we all . . .

Sara
Hahaha!

Marie Brennan
…were there questions you wanted to ask us, Sara?
Or are we just that amazing labor-saving innovation, the Self-Interviewing Authors?

Sara
HAHA that was what I was telling Hiu too, “omg they’re doing amazing, I shall not interrupt”

Alyc Helms
Me, an hour ago: I’m so tired, I don’t know if I’ll have anything interesting to say.
Me, now: Ahahahahahahahahaha

Sara
But it’s not an interview, you are the experts and having you chat about the topic is just great!
I don’t know how long I can hold you, but I had a question mostly about fashion in worldbuilding – how to properly incorporate it, how to make it evolve with the world you’re creating, etc.

Marie Brennan
We haven’t even gotten to the political side — though all three of us are on the Textiles and Politics panel at WorldCon, so maybe better if we don’t blow our wad on that topic ahead of time.

Rowenna Miller
Ha! Yes, we can save some of the good stuff, lol!

Sara
Hahahaa seems like you’re the usual suspects re: this topic
ok but seriously the panel sounds amazing!!!

Marie Brennan
One of the big things Alyc and I had to do, and Rowenna has this as well, is acknowledging that different ethnic groups will have different styles. It isn’t just a matter of “rich vs. poor,” but also “immigrants and expat communities vs. locals” — and then the tensions around someone from one group assimilating to another via clothing (and other markers).
So if you’re writing a story that doesn’t just focus on a single group with no outsiders, taking a moment to note just in a detail here, a detail there, that people dress differently — that’s vital.

Alyc Helms
For incorporating, I think one of the key things to remember is that not every reader is a visual reader — meaning, they don’t see what you’re describing (and depending on what you’re describing, even visual readers might not have the reference knowledge to envision it), so it’s important to try to convey the feeling of clothing — the swish of skirts, the constriction of the corset, the nap of velvet or the cool slide of silk.

Marie Brennan
Yes, get multi-sensory with it. And also show how people react to it.

Rowenna Miller
I think the idea of evolution is important in incorporating clothing–that most of the time clothing is not static, and acknowledging changing trends and norms and where influences are coming from helps it feel and like active, live world. When someone is going to wear their mom’s gown to the ball…well, probably not in many cases, they’re going to tear it apart and rework it.

Alyc Helms
Yes.

Marie Brennan
You want to integrate this stuff with everything else the text is doing. Robert Jordan infamously describes clothing a lot (not just the women’s dresses but the men’s coats as well), but . . . it tends to be flat exposition. Here’s who’s present and what they’re wearing. Very little of it carries political implications, or shows that somebody is particularly innovative or dowdy.

Alyc Helms
(except for what Andi did to Iona’s pretty in pink dress. that was sacrilege)

Marie Brennan
Also seasonality in clothing! What people wear in summer and winter may not be the same! And if they can afford fashion, there might just be differences of color or motif that aren’t practical in nature, simply au courant with the styles of autumn or a particular holiday.

Rowenna Miller
Definitely this too — and how people are going to adapt and layer and use what they have if they’re not wealthy — and often even if they are wealthy, because clothes are still an investment.

Alyc Helms
But also… unless you have fast fashion, you’re going to get remnant stalls or hand-me-downs or otherwise all sorts of re-use until you’re down to rags, and there’s all sorts of interesting things you can do with that… Like a murdered person’s coat showing up on a local street tough.

Marie Brennan
Oh, definitely. Secondhand clothing used to be an ENORMOUS market, and you get things like servants being paid with the cast-off clothing of their employers.

Rowenna Miller
The sheer cost of fabric and clothing, honestly, could probably be considered even more in a lot of fantasy — like there are times and places where cloth was used as currency!

Alyc Helms
Yes.

Marie Brennan
You can even show change over time by having servants dressed in old-fashioned styles — think of the British footmen in knee breeches and wigs long after the lords weren’t wearing that kind of thing.
That wasn’t simply cast-offs at work, it was society deciding that the proper look for a servant was “eighty years out of date.”

Sara
Joke’s on them, retro is soo in.

Marie Brennan
Maybe because that meant you could afford to outfit your servants in custom-made retro livery.

Alyc Helms
I think there is also something to knowing what the shape of the silhouette is for your clothing period… and also how changes over time/different classes and genders/different cultural adoptions might affect/change that.

Rowenna Miller
And please, please don’t assume corsets are torture devices. 😂

Sara
HAHAHA i see the corset talk on my twitter feed so often. 😂

Marie Brennan
They really aren’t! They’re the support garment of the European past, not some tight-lacing monstrosity.

Alyc Helms
They are so much more comfortable than underwire bras.

Sara
Bring Back the Corsets 2022.

Alyc Helms
Like, for my back as well.
YES!

Rowenna Miller
Exactly!

Marie Brennan
Especially because corsets, like shoes, tend to mold themselves to your shape with long wearing.
Maybe less so now that we bone them with spring steel, but in the past, you could definitely break them in to be extremely comfortable.

Alyc Helms
Naw, the spring steel ones still do that, cause it’s the fabric (well, cotton-backed satin, at least) that conforms.

Rowenna Miller
Whalebone corsets totally still, hundreds of years later, are their previous owners shape!

Marie Brennan
I think when the Elizabethans used reeds for boning, even that would shape itself somewhat to your body.

Alyc Helms
Hacksaw blades, however, do not (my first corsets were boned with hacksaw blades in casings because these were pre-internet days and nobody around me knew how/where to get proper boning)
(not corsets. Bodices. But you get the idea)

Sara
I feel very boring with my tops and jeans. 😂

Marie Brennan
I dress incredibly boringly at home. And not much more interestingly at cons.

Alyc Helms
Yeah, I was going to say, meet my wardrobe of yoga pants and t-shirts.

Sara
Hahaha!!

Rowenna Miller
I do appreciate the modern innovation of stretchy pants.

Alyc Helms
Yeah. And in general, the whole acceptance of comfort over fashion/style.

Sara
I did Not like going back to real pants once working from home was mostly over here.

Alyc Helms
I can get dressed up, but I don’t have to.

Sara
Yoga pants, my love.
Ok maybe one last question to let you go back to your pie-coma and writing, and I’m making it a fluff one!
What piece of clothing from fantasy really marked your imagination, be it in books or movies?

Alyc Helms
Lily’s black dress from Legend.
That whole transformation dance, really

Marie Brennan
Hah, now I want to steal Alyc’s answer!

Alyc Helms
And… pretty much anything designed by Colleen Atwood

Marie Brennan
I’m terrible at coming up with answers to this sort of thing on command.

Sara
Hahaha i’m sorry!!

Alyc Helms
Buttercup’s blue dress?

Marie Brennan
Eh, I have a costume of that, but it was more “my mother and I can make this” rather than “this is the dress of my dreams.”

Alyc Helms
Doesn’t have to be a dress. 😄
Because now that I’m thinking about it… all of Jareth’s wardrobe.
Changing my answer to that.

Sara
I think the most recent one for me was Timothee Chalamet’s I’m-being-Moody coat in Dune.

Rowenna Miller
Oohhhh there’s many….but as a kid, Buttercup’s red dress. It had a pragmatism to it that I loved.

Alyc Helms
I do love the pragmatism of Buttercup’s dress. Like, it was so NOT a princess dress.

Marie Brennan
I must admit I generally imprinted on the Dread Pirate Roberts/Zorro overall look.
To the point where I was disappointed that at the end of S1 Daredevil Matt got an official costume, because I really preferred his “tight-fitting black clothes and a black kerchief + mask” look — very Dread Pirate Roberts.

Sara
Hahahaha!!

Alyc Helms
Yeah, that seems on brand.

Sara
That was an absolutely LOVELY chat, I’m sorry I wasn’t a more hands-on “mod” but honestly, the purpose was to have you chat about this topic you’re so knowledgeable and passionate about and I think it’s mission accomplished!!!

Marie Brennan
It was a lot of fun!

Rowenna Miller
It was a ton of fun!

Alyc Helms
You were awesome! And yeah, this was a fun chat!

Rowenna Miller
Thanks for setting this up!

Marie Brennan
And Round Two can come at WorldCon. 🙂

Alyc Helms
YES!

Rowenna Miller
YAY!

Sara
YES I AM looking so forward to that!

Alyc Helms
I was thinking… we can just continue it in a few weeks.

Sara
Make it thirsty.

Marie Brennan
Aye aye.

Alyc Helms
Always.

Sara
(If you see this, Hiu, no you didn’t.)

Alyc Helms
Gonna go wash off my unnecessary makeup now 😄 (for some reason, I thought I’d have to be on screen for this.)
So glad I didn’t have to be.

Marie Brennan
Yeah, we both got dolled up in Author Costume because we didn’t remember the format.

Sara
Hahahaha oh thankfully it’s not, I look like something a cat dragged inside the house.
Fridays are rough.

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The best thing about being the editor is that I get to device where to cut the chat off. 🙂

But how about that chat! So much to take in. Alyc, Marie and Rowenna all have some great books out, but the ones we want to highlight at the minute are two series openers: Torn and The Mask of Mirrors! Check out the blurbs, covers, and relevant links below:

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Torn by Rowenna Miller

In an enchanting world of sartorial sorcery, court intrigue, and revolutionary royals, a charm caster finds herself torn between loyalty to her brother and her love for a nobleman as a rebellion sweeps the land in this French Revolution-inspired debut historical fantasy.

Sophie, a dressmaker and charm caster, has lifted her family out of poverty with a hard-won reputation for beautiful ball gowns and discreetly embroidered spells. A commission from the royal family could secure her future — and thrust her into a dangerous new world.

Revolution is brewing. As Sophie’s brother, Kristos, rises to prominence in the growing anti-monarchist movement, it is only a matter of time before their fortunes collide.

When the unrest erupts into violence, she and Kristos are drawn into a deadly magical plot. Sophie is torn—between her family and her future.

Add Torn on Goodreads, or buy it from Bookshop.org, Amazon, the Broken Binding, or other retailers.

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The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick

FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD. MAGIC FAVORS THE LIARS.

Ren is a liar and a thief, a pattern-reader and a daughter of no clan. Raised in the slums of Nadezra, she fled that world to save her sister. Now, she has returned with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house, securing her fortune and her sister’s future.

But in the city of dreams, her masquerade is just one of many. Enigmatic crime lord Derossi Vargo, stony captain of the guard Grey Serrado, dashing heir Leato Traementis, and the legendary vigilante known as the Rook all have secrets that could unravel her own.

And as corrupt nightmare magic begins to weave its way through the city of dreams, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled–with Ren at their heart.

Add Book 1 on Goodreads, or buy it from Bookshop.org, Amazon, the Broken Binding, or other retailers.

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For more author interviews, check out our podcast, or check out previous episodes of Common Room Conversations below:

Episode Number	Guests	Topic
1	John Gwynne & Miles Cameron	Weapons in Fiction
2	C.L. Clark, Tasha Suri, and Shelley Parker-Chan	Sapphics Rise, Empires Fall
3	Gareth Hanrahan, Jackson Ford, RJ Barker	Sh*t Hits the Fan
4	C.L. Polk, Freya Marske, Olivia Atwater	Fantasy of Manners
5	Devin Madson, E.J. Beaton, Maiya Ibrahim, Sam Hawke	Aussies Destroy the Patriarchy
6	M.J. Kuhn and Christopher Buehlman	Thieves! Thieves!