11/01/2025
Shall we dance!
I’m not sure how to summarize this post. I just wanted to get it posted. It took me years to work on this project cause I hadn’t found enough time to get parts of it done I made every part of this dress from the corset to the hoop skirt. It’s not perfect as I tried to rush it to be finished by this week because my sister is going back out of state, but I would guess that I put in a good 3 to 400 hours possibly more into this ensemble the base of this costume starts with the corset that I built with 1860s corset pattern, I hand drafted the elliptical cage (hoop skirt) with its widest at 200”, for the dust ruffle alone was about 7 yards long. I used 13 yds of a ovaltine color satin for the dress, the bodice is interfaced and structured with 4 layers and about 14 boning channels. This fabric I could say some unkind words about in regards to how difficult it was to not pucker while sewing even with the right needles, the right tension it kept wanting to pucker, which resulted me hand hemming 360 inches of fabric for the skirt hem. What’s so odd about this piece that Irene sharaff designed is that it’s an 1860s ball gown but it’s an elliptical years before they were in fashion and it has 1830s beret sleeves and overall a very 1950s look even the gloves are 1950s gloves and the sequins that they had on their n**e which I couldn’t make in time were feathers that were very fashionable sequin feathers in the 1940s and 50s. this was a huge challenge just finding the time to make this happen was just not possible but years of trying to finally get this done. I made something that I am fairly happy with and I think looks pretty darn close to the movie. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this wig on a weeks notice!