Packing Gown Mock up Progress

I made some major progress on my mock up for Padme's Packing Gown this week. I'm so excited to see it all coming together! I made the under vest mock up this last weekend and then I also have made some huge progress on the under skirt and and skirt mock up.

Here's some pictures of the under vest. I haven't gotten to the sleeves yet, as you can tell. It has three pieces of boning in the front and then there are a total of four pieces on the back. There isn't a lot of information of what goes under the costume, so I was left to come up with a lot by myself.

When I was looking at others costumes, I saw someone did a lace up back for the under vest. I decided that that would be the best way to do this, so I did. This was my first time using grommets and it went well. They're pretty easy to use. For the mock up I only used twelve (six on each side) but when I made the real one I want to put a few more on each side. I still don't know for sure how may I will do.

Right now the skirt is in two half's and is only pinned onto Mannie (my sewing form). It's harder to see in these pictures, but the skirt is very, very full. It's definitely screen accurate in fullness. I still need to work on the back though.

I also completely re-did the under skirt. I have four rows of ruffles which are about 6.5 inches wide. I have three rows of ruffles and on the bottom row there are two layers of ruffles.

I've started working on the bustle pad. I'm going for something like this one here, only not as big. The bustle on Padme's dress is very small.

Packing Gown Skirt Mock Up

I've been working on the skirt mock up for the packing gown for the last week or so now, and I've started to make some really good progress. I've been trying to figure out how to work the pleats and have gone through a lot of different types and trials.

This was my second attempt at getting the pleats right.

As you can see here it looks pretty good on the top, but the bottom half of the skirt isn't as full as it needs to be. So I took all of those pleats out and tried again but this time made them smaller.

This is what I have for the underskirt right now. The plan is to put ruffles along the whole under skirt, but for right now this is all I have and it's working for the time being.

Since my room is so small I have to spread everything out on my bed. Here's some of the reference photo's I've been using.

I recently bought "Dressing a Galaxy" by Trisha Biggar, and it's an amazing book! Unfortunately it only has two pictures of the packing gown in it. But I've still found it really helpful in making this costume so far.

For my next attempt at the skirt I needed more material so I found some old sheets and have been using that. I made the pleats smaller and that did help, but it still wasn't looking quite right. I needed the pleats to be even smaller, but I didn't know how to do that. I went and looked through my reference photo's to try and get an idea of what to try next.

I decided to test out an idea I had after I noticed in this picture that the skirt seemed to be sewn to the under bodice. It doesn't look like it's pleated at this part but instead just gathered and the waistband underneath seems to have the pleats pinned into place.

So I went back to my previous fabric to test it out and it worked! I gathered it and pinned it onto the sewing form before adding the waistband.

I guess you could call it a mock, mock waistband. It didn't look the nicest but it seemed to be working.

 I went back to the sheets and gathered it. The sheet's were approximately 2.5 yards long and that just barely made it around. So I think I'm going to have to add another yard to yard and a half because the back isn't as full as it should be.

Please excuse the mess. Like I said before, my room is small and everything goes onto my bed or floor when I'm sewing.

So that's pretty much where I'm at right now. I attempted to get the little bustle the skirt has by creating a bustle pad, but it ended up being too big and more like and 1870's skirt than Padme's packing gown. So I'm going to be trying some other methods next.

Padme's Packing Gown

I've wanted to make this costume forever but have always been intimidated by it because I want it to be perfect. I've seen so many recreations of this dress but I've never seen one with the right skirt silhouette. I've been studying this costume for around 2 years now and building up my knowledge of costuming. I've finally started to come up with some good idea's on how to get the correct silhouette.

The part I've been worrying about the most is the skirt. It has so full and uses a lot of material. I've been trying to figure out what sort of support is under the skirt. I was originally thinking of a small hoop skirt, but when you see her walking in it in the movie you can see that her legs move the fabric, so that eliminates that idea.

Also, I recently realized that her skirt has a slight bustle. And in the back there is a very small portion of the skirt that lays on the ground.


 I began to think of what Trisha Biggar must have used to create this and then I remembered that one of the reasons she was chosen to be costume designer of these films was because she had a background in historical clothing. I decided to try and think of what sort of historical dresses had a similar skirt shape and came up with 1830's through 1840's and for the bustle the 1870's and 80's of course.

I ended up finding this ruffle petticoat made for an 1830's-40's dress that I think would give a pretty close silhouette with a few modifications.


I've begun working on a mock up for both the skirt and the underskirt. I've been having to make them both simultaneously because I can't see if I'm getting the correct silhouette of the skirt without the underskirt and I can't see if the underskirt is giving the correct shape without the skirt.

I've been making progress though and I'll have some upcoming posts about what I'm doing.