Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Sophitia's Dress

I realized that I never really wrote much on how I made my Sophitia costume.
Sorry about that, and here it is about a year late, haha


Well, The dress was probably the simplest part of this costume.
I started by measuring where I wanted the dress to fall on my thighs, as well as how wide across my breasts it needed to cover.

I have a dress form, so it was easy to figure out approximately how big and where the "bodice" of the dress should go. I cut out tapered rectangle shapes for the bodice, and used 3 layers of sheep and one layer of white, so it was the same thickness as the skirt.

After I made the initial measurements, I looked at the reference photos, and figure out where the pleats on the skirt should be. They were box pleats, so each pleat is 4 times as large as the overlap on the pleat, if that makes sense. Here's a drawing if that will help.

I took my waist measurement and added the size of each of the pleats to that measurement. I then marked out a rectangle on a large sheet of paper, the length of my waist + pleats, and the height was how long I decided the skirt needed to be.
I figure out where each pleat was going to go, and marked that on the rectangle I had drawn. I then made a template for the bottom scallop shape to fit evenly into the rectangle and drew it onto the rectangle, completing the pattern.

I'll take some detail photos and add them in a bit later. Sorry about that.

I then cut out 3 layers of sheer fabric, and one layer of white fabric to make up the skirt. I sewed the scalloped edges together on 2 layers of sheer fabric, then again on the layer of white and the last sheer layer, ending up with 2 layers to my skirt. I topstitched each layer before screen printing the design on the skirt. I used a french seam to finish the skirt up nicely, and I serged it together.

For the sheer layers that tie on the shoulder, go under the shoes, and drape on my upper arms, I used my serger to create a rolled hem edge along all the sides of each piece.

After turning and pressing the bodice, I sewed it to the skirt, with the sheer triangular layers in-between the bodice and skirt, and serged it all together. I added in an elastic casing and added some 3/4 inch elastic to the waist of the dress to help hold it up.

To make the shoulders of the dress, I used some pleather lined with cotton to create the shape, and the straps are made out of the same pleather. I used some thick wire to sew under the "shoulder pads" to make them kind of clamp onto my shoulders.

The shoulder pieces are the main thing that holds this dress up, along with fashion tape, haha.

Looking at the dress, I didn't have a problem figuring out how to make it, but how to wear a bro with it… I don't know if this is too much information, but I thought I could share, incase other people are having problems figuring out how to get support in a similar situation of a backless, center cleavage to my waist, side boob included dress.
I used one of these sticky bras:
and instead of putting it on the way listed in the instructions, I didn't clasp it in the center. I turned the sticky cups 90 degrees, to where the part that would clasp together was on the top… uh well, I applied it to myself like it's shown in this video:
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