Designing Desera

I'm attempting to catch up on all the projects I never posted about, or even photographed, from this year so I can do my end of year review post. Today's post is about a costume I made for a film I worked on with Rogue Zohu this summer.

The film was a Star Wars fan film for the Lightsaber Choreography Competition, which is something my sister and I have wanted to do for a couple of years now. Our film ended up with an honorable mention, or the equivalent of 4th place.

Working on this film was so much fun but during production we had all sorts of problems, the biggest being that my sister (who plays one of the leads, Desera) ended up breaking her clavicle on the 2nd day of filming. We were never able to finish filming and due to the 3 minute time limit they had to cut the beginning dialog out. Nonetheless, it still turned out to be an awesome short and I can't wait for the "full" version to be released.

For this project I co-wrote the script as well as was one of the two Costume Designers. I ended up working mostly on Desera's costume but helped contribute idea's for the other's as well.

I drafted the pattern/made the tunic, obi, and cuffs myself. The fabric I used was a cheap synthetic fiber that dirt did not like to stick to. To get the costume as dirty as we wanted we ended up using a combination of real dirt/mud, spray paint, and wood stain. The wood stain was what really made it.

One set, day 1. Pic via @anniefilmmaker

Designing this costume was an interesting challenge. The setting for the short is a dystopian Star Wars world torn by war. Desera's a senator trying to end the conflict but one of her opponents/enemy's hired an assassin who abducted her from one of her rallies in order to assassinate her.

I had so much fun researching for this because I got to bring out all of my Star Wars books to look for inspiration and design elements to incorporate in the costumes. The main inspiration for Desera was the handmaiden battle outfits from The Phantom Menace. I wanted something that looked elegant but functional. I ended up with a color scheme of red and blue because of the symbolism; blue fors peace and red for spirit and passion, which embodies Desera's character and what she's trying to accomplish.

The mostly completed costume. A few design elements were added after.

As I already said, I drafted the patterns myself. The tunic was pretty simple and is shaped in the front with two darts and the back is made of 3 pieces with princess seams. The shoulders are padded and the skirt is a three piece pattern pleated onto the bodice. The obi is bonned to hold it's shape and the cuffs are a simple design that close with snaps.

Before distressing...

And after distressing. Believe it or not, we ended up adding more dirt after this picture was taken.

This was also the first time I distressed a costume. I was a bit worried since I'd never done this before. My biggest fear was that I'd end up distressing it too much. But as it turns out, you simply cannot distress a costume too much. You just can't. We had a rather difficult time getting it dirty and beat up enough. The costumes don't look nearly as rough on screen as they did in person.

There were a ton of tiny details about this costume that I wish I could have done a better job on (mostly construction wise), but because of my limited amount of time to make it I didn't have time to fix a lot of things. Though, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who notices these things. Every time I'd point something out that I wish I could have fixed my sister would tell me that she had no idea what I was talking about because it looked great to her. The curse of being a perfectionist.

The Green Regency Dress

This year I completed my first Regency dress, hooray! I say completed because one of the first dresses I ever tried to sew was a Regency dress made from a nasty pink floral cotton and a Simplicity pattern. It didn't end well. In fact, it never actually ended because I never quite finished it. But that was a long time ago.

Near the beginning of this year I finally watched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, and because of that movie I actually fell in love with the Regency era (fashion wise) as well as the story. I know, I know, it's practically illegal to like the 2005 film, but I do and it's the only film adaptation of any Jane Austen novel that I actually liked.

Well, after watching it I decided to make make a Regency dress. After doing some research I decided on making an apron front (or drop front) dress, because I liked the simplicity of it and it's easy to get into without any help. The pattern I ended up with is Laughing Moon #126, which I'm actually working on writing a review for.

The mock up went beautifully and the pattern didn't need any alterations. None. It was awesome.

Starting off, here's what I wore underneath (minus the chemise, because I need to re-make it). I wore my half stays (made with a modified version of the Regency stay pattern from Jean Hunnisett's book, Period Costume for the Stage and Screen) and a petticoat. I used the same skirt pattern as for the actual dress and pleated it in the same way, attaching it to a waistband with criss-cross straps. It closes with a hook and eye on the side where I left one of the seams open about 8 inches.

Petticoats during this era wore worn more for modesty than for adding fullness to the skirt. Because the skirts were so slim compared to the styles beforehand, when a lady was walking or if there was a breeze the skirts would hug to the legs which wasn't modest for the time.

On to the actual dress. Here's the dress before the apron front is pulled up. As you can see it ties in the front underneath to hold it in place. The apron piece that comes over top is gathered with ribbons along the top and is pinned at the corners onto the dress to hold it up.

I ended up with a green stretch cotton sateen for this dress, which was a little bit heavy but because of the weight it drapes rather nicely. It's just too heavy to hang when I'm storing it which means I have to store it folded. The only problem I have with that is when I do want to bring it out I have to iron the entire thing.

You can kind of see the pin holding the apron up here

Regency is such an easy era to sew and wear; I love it! Everything is so loose, you don't have any hoops or bustles, and with a pair of half stays it's basically like the historical equivalent of yoga pants. I really want to make more dresses from this era and I really need to make a Spencer jacket to go with it.

All the Fluff | 1840's Petticoats

There are a lot of reasons why I really like my 1840's dress, but one of my absolute favorite parts is the petticoats. The fashions of the time were to have a large, full skirt but this was before the invention of the crinoline hoop skirt (which came in the 1850's), which meant lots and lots of petticoats.

I ended up using 10 yards of 60" wide cotton that I purchased at the LA Garment District while I was at Costume College in July. 10 yards was enough for 1 corded petticoat, 2 petticoats and just enough scraps left over to make the mock up of the bodice for the dress.

The patterns for my petticoats were really simple; just two square pieces 60" x 43". I wanted the end circumference of the petticoats to be approximately 120" and I cut the length at 43" to have plenty of room for a nice wide hem (I think I ended up with 5") and several rows of 1/2" pin tucks.

Underneath all of the petticoats I made a small bustle pad as well (which was popular for the era). Pretty simple, but it took me a few tries to get just the right size I wanted.

My corded petticoat. I had originally planned to do several more rows closer to the top, but I decided I didn't need to but it was still a little too long, which is why there's a random pin tuck at the top.

For the cording, I used white cotton yarn that I picked up at Joann's. I ended up buying more than I actually needed, but in the future I would try to get a thicker cording. Since this was my first time making (or wearing) a corded petticoat I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it really adds a lot of shape/volume.

Petticoat #2. Pretty simple, with lots of gathers, 3 rows of pin tucks, and a drawstring waistband.

You can still see some of my pen markings, as I hadn't washed them out at the time of taking these pictures.

And petticoat #3. This one is a few inches longer then the one beneath. I opted out of any pin tucks on this one, mostly because I was getting too lazy to add them.

On a side note, I still have to starch these petticoats. I haven't gotten around to it yet since they need to hang dry and the weather has been rainy lately.