This was actually copied from the starry night painting! I made the bustier top and cut a large circle skirt for the bottom. I painted the skirt before assembling and the top after assembling. It is made of a light blue satin and painted with mostly fabric paints and puffy paints and some acrylic paints where I ran out ….It is painted front and back. On the exact sides of the circle skirt, I attached rectangle panels that go upwards and comnplete more of the painting. At the top of the rectangles, I attached brown gloves so that when you raise your arms, the whole painting is displayed! I wore this for Halloween in 2008 and now it is for rental in our shop. Everyone got the painting part, but the whole Idea was that I WAS a painting. Brown tights and boots, paired with the brown gloves and a brown hat with a little picture hanger attached to it made the “frame” for the dress. That went over most folks heads, so for the rental, its just the dress.
UPDATE 2013: Here are some new pics of my Caprica Six Dress
I have now made many of these and am still constructing it the same way..custom..and by building out my mannequin to the customer specs! These new pics are awesome. Thanks to John Eaves for sharing his photo shoot!
OLD PHOTOS AND INFO ON THE BS SIX DRESS:
I had never seen Battlestar Galactica nor this Red Dress until I received a special request. It is quite a show stopper! Well…Six is…in it. It was a challenge deciding how to create a dress with not much to it that would produce so much cleavage. Until I find an easier way, these are custom patterned to fit each customer based on their best fitting push up strapless bra that they send me. The bra is actually built into the dress and is the backbone that holds everything up and in place 🙂
I use a matte jersey with slight stretch and a bit of sheen. This allows for a snug, but forgiving fit. I depend on my two mannequins for all my patterning and the patterning actually takes about twice the time of the constructing! Like the green fairy, there is lots of hand sewing involved and patience while working with stretch fabric. I would like to try one in a thick lycra next….
This costume started off pretty basic in just a green satin, but after a special request from a customer, I now can do it in an A-Mazing green sequin. I never did it in sequins before because the fabric you find at local stores is the cheapo sparsely decorated stuff. This fabric we found online really makes the costume and I’m exited to now be able to offer it. I use my basic corset sweetheart neckline pattern extended down a bit over premade briefs. The tulle wraps around to a bow like pouf in the back for some tush coverage. I add removable wings that are just a light layer of tulle…very fluttery and slight. They slip down into channels I build into the back of the corset itself. This costume has hours of hand stitching with the laying of the tulle and the sequined seams, so was much more labor intensive than I first planned. All worth it though, in the end!
Here are the first shots from the photo shoot for the Lion Tamer costume! The model was Emily from http://www.modelmayhem.com/584111 and the photographer was Anya at www.anyarice.com
The costume was only about half finished when we did the shoot, so I will be updating with more photos. It started with a black basic corset in pinstripe with gold piping accent and a little 80’s vintage red cropped jacket with red and white detail. I just put her in a little black slip skirt and leggings, a black leather necklace and tophat, and pinned a dangly gold necklace to the bottom of the corset. I made a costume whip out of long strips of black fabric, a spatula handle and electrical tape! It was super long and looked really great for the shots! I suppose for the actual rental, I may cut these down so nobody gets hurt 🙂
I started with 2 navy dresses. Left side was a 40’s rayon thing with mock tneck, so I made it a wide boat neck. The right side one was a nice 60’s era coctail suit. Both were hemmed to a short fun length. I cut the zippers out of the backs of both and added ribbon loops and privacy panels to make them lace up style to fit different sizes for our rental section at the shop. The sleeves were allready 3/4 length, so I left them as is. Then I just decorated and accessorized with red and gold trim and nautical/military pins. Add some little pockets, white belt and white gloves and were done!
This production was done in 2008 at the Georgia center in Athens. My first costuming gig with Rose of Athens. Shrew was set in the early 1950’s. The director wanted the look of the transition from the late 40’s …before the teen trend of the poodle skirt look.
My inspiration came from a Marlon Brando shot from the Wild One.
from http://www.mptvimages.com/
Straiter skirts, cheery colors for Bianca, drab darks for Kate. Petruchio and Grumio wore the chucks, jeans and leather jacket/vest. Sweater vests, ascot ties, hats, and suspenders for the other characters. The wedding dress for Kate was made from scratch…a really pretty suit with 3/4 sleeves and a headband veil. The most fun of this production was piecing together crazy outfits for Petruchio and Grumio’s wedding gear. The idea was multicultural, so there were kimonos, indian pants, a kilt, an animal covered hat, a chinese worker shirt, mismatched shoes and socks, a cowboy boot, um….was that it?
MiaLa costuming blog 