Lauren and I have been friends for a little over half our lives, but it is only in the past few years that we have developed a designer/cosplayer relationship. I have to say that I am grateful that Lauren trusts me enough to let me choose her costumes, and then proceed to make a vision come to life. You may remember Lauren from such costumes as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Maleficent. (That was a Troy McClure homage, as we're both Simpsons fanatics!)
On Thursday night I finished making alterations to a dress that Lauren found at a thrift shop to make it look like Belle's dress from the "Little Town" sequence in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. When we were discussing cosplay ideas for this year's Fan Expo Canada in Toronto, I was most excited about the possibility of making a dress from my absolute favourite Disney movie. This sent Lauren on a thrift store scavenger hunt to find a reasonably priced garment that could be altered fairly quickly, and on a budget.
The before/after picture is posted below. Here were the steps involved in altering the dress.
1. Square the bust line. Lauren tried on the dress so that I could see how it fit. Rather than measuring and marking, I took a short cut and took the scissors to the dress while it was on Lauren. This is where the duration of our friendship comes into play -- "let me just put these super-sharp blades close to your jugular and cut down to about where your heart is" -- then I used masking tape to mark where the material would need to be cut across. We also the discussed the length and what to do about that white stripe in the middle of skirt. It turns out that the stripe was easily removed, and I had some material on-hand for the white trim.
2. After that initial fitting, I measured my tape markings to make sure everything was symmetrical, and set to work cutting, pinning, and finishing the edges of the bust line and straps.
One challenge presented by the dress was that there were rhinestones randomly placed on the shoulders, and so I had to be careful the avoid them. Careful as I was, one tiny rhinestone was overlooked and shattered my sewing machine needle. Luckily I had a spare handy, so disaster was averted.
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Without the apron it become apparent how much fuller
the skirt is without the sewn-in pleats. |
3. Un-pleat the pleats. This involved using my seam ripper, a hot iron, and steam. Thankfully removing the pleats gave the skirt a nice full look, which is exactly what we wanted.
4. The trim: I used material from the lining from a skirt that I bought but never wore (it was also a thrift shop find, so I can be fancy and say I up-cycled it).
I decided how wide the trim should be, measured the circumference of the skirt to see what length of trim would be needed, then set to work measuring and cutting.
The trim was attached, edges finished, and layers of tiny zig-zag stitching was used to add some pizzazz to an otherwise boring part of the dress.
5. Trim 2.0: still not satisfied with the length of the dress, I added a sheer broad ribbon, which added about 5cm of length to the dress.
6. Apron! It's just skirt lining and ribbon!
With about 2 hours of work (spread out over a couple of days and between watching episodes of 'The X-Files'), the dress was done. Lauren added a blouse, a crinoline, and some accessories. The final fitting was Thursday night, and Fan Expo was Friday. I didn't attend this year, but our friend Christina
(who has an awesome doll blog that you should take a look at) posted some pictures of the completed cosplay.
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| What we started with, and where we ended up. |
Now to end with some parody lyrics based on
Something There, because writing parody lyrics is one of my other (lesser known) hobbies:
The dress was blue,
With a white stripe
And its neckline, it was rounded
And too high,
But now it's square,
The stripe is gone,
And when wearing it,
L burst out into song
The skirt had pleats,
It was too short,
But had potential to be something
Really sweet
And so I cut,
And ripped and stitched
And made the dress look really different than before
Trim, ribbon, and an apron,
Who'd have ever thought that this could be
True, the dress was not charming
But it looks much better now
as if from the movie
Well who'd have thought
Well bless my soul
Well who'd have known
Well who indeed
And who'd have guessed the difference
That some thread could make
It's so peculiar
When you see
An altered dress
That looks like something there that wasn't there before
You know perhaps there's something there that wasn't there before
There may be something there that wasn't there before.
