I'm a fan of the Outlander TV series on Starz, and a fan of the books (well through book 4 technically since I have not read beyond that) by Diana Gabaldon.  This week, the show was promoting its 2nd season in New York City.  While I didn't get to the city in time to attend any of the weekday events, I was able to see the Saks Fifth Avenue window displays showcasing some of Terry Dresbach's jaw dropping costume work.  I also braved the terrible weather with a friend to see the male lead, Sam Heughan (Lego interpretation below), take on the role of Grand Marshal of the 2016 NYC Annual Tartan Day Parade Saturday afternoon.  It was cold, it was raining, it was exactly how a parade celebrating Scottish heritage should be!  Sam was a very enthusiastic parade host, and I suspect all of his fans left with a smile on their faces. 


Oh, and one more Outlander event occurred while I was in town too -- while waiting for a Genius Bar appointment at the Apple Store for my phone that has started to behave very badly, I randomly bumped into the show's Producer, Ron Moore, and his wife, the aforementioned Terry Dresbach who were nice enough to indulge me with a brief conversation about the show.  


Back to Saturday afternoon, it was definitely Spring's practical joke, weather-wise, in New York City. As Sam Heughan joked on a morning show the day before, he was glad the forecast called for rain and cold, or typical Scottish weather, because otherwise he'd get too hot walking the parade route. The Tartan Day Parade is a 10 block route up 6th Avenue, from 45th to 55th.  As Grand Marshal, Heughan was at the front of the parade and stayed at its finishing point, once reached, for the duration to oversee the festivities from the top deck of a double decker bus.  We staked out a corner near the end of the route a bit before the 2pm start time, and it turned out to be perfect.  It took the parade about 30-45 minutes to actually get to us, and by that point we were freezing our butts off!  Even being wet and cold, though, it was a fun time.  And let's face it, Sam's not too shabby when it comes to good looks! Here are some of the photos I took.  I'll put the rest at the bottom of this post.

















This second season of the show is inspired by the second book in the Outlander series, with the majority of the story set in Paris and in the Scottish highlands.  The Saks costume window displays, not surprisingly, highlighted the ostentatious fashion of show's 18th century wealthy Parisian characters, with the bright silks, indulgent accessories, and detail work you might expect.  In the book, there is one dress in particular worn by the lead female, Claire, that was highly anticipated by readers. That dress is a deep red silk with a plunging neckline that would have been considered scandalous anywhere else at the time.  Terry Dresbach designed that dress as well as several others with fantastic attention to very minute details.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they are all used in the show.  There was evidence of thousands of hours of hand embroidery on both the mens' and womens' costumes on display, and I believe the design on the brown dress was hand painted with embroidered highlights. Simply stunning!















While tonight is the official airing of Outlander Season 2 Episode 1, many fans like myself have already watched it, as it was released to Starz subscribers on the new Starz app.  It was fantastic, and I told Ron Moore at the Apple Store that I really liked the adaptation choices he made to start off the story.

And back to Sam Heughan as the Grand Marshal of the Tartan Day Parade....apparently I took a lot more photos than I thought, especially considering the weather and how often I was wiping the rain off my lens!