If you have ever visited Calico Laine at our Neston branch, you might be aware that some of our staff are keen dressmakers - including me! I am always happy to help our customers who ask for a little bit of sewing advice, and one of my most favourite topics to talk about is costumes and fancy dress. I have talked about the hobby called 'cosplay' on our Calico Laine blog before, and in today's blog I'll be talking about another costume that I have made recently.
In less than a month, I'll be jetting away to Florida and I am so excited to visit my home away from home, Walt Disney World! As a result, all of the costumes I have made this year have been related to Disney, and my favourite so far is my Belle costume from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. It was actually the first costume I made this year, and was a huge improvement on the first version that I made nearly 6 and a half years before.
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Photography credit to Beth Dooner.[/caption]
Some people think that to make a glamorous costume, your budget needs to be huge and your chosen fabrics need to be the best quality that money can buy (which often comes with the biggest price tag). This is absolutely not the case - most of my Belle cosplay is made from our Regular Bi-Stretch Fabric! For the white-coloured garments in my outfit (these were the shirt, the apron, the underskirt and the bloomers), I decided that although cotton would have been a good choice, I did not want something that would crease easily as I would be photographed repeatedly throughout the day when wearing it. I found our Regular Bi-Stretch Fabric to be a fantastic alternative at a purse-friendly price (which was incredibly helpful when I needed to buy so much of it), and it was wonderful to work with as well.
As for the blue parts of my costume (i.e. the dress and the hair bow), I used our Azure Microfibre Fabric. This is another Fabric that does not crease easily; I chose it after studying many photographs of the costumes that cast members portraying Belle in the Disney theme parks wear, because I wanted a fabric with a slight sheen but did not want to use any Satin Fabrics. Microfibre is one of my favourite Fabrics to work with, and I have recommended it to many customers before now.
I made my costume without any dressmaking patterns, but I am sure that there are many available that would help you achieve similar results to my costume if you are hoping to create your own. Both of our Calico Laine branches supply sewing patterns by Butterick, McCalls and Vogue, as well as Kwik Sew (although these are special order only).
Photography credit to Beth Dooner.[/caption]
Some people think that to make a glamorous costume, your budget needs to be huge and your chosen fabrics need to be the best quality that money can buy (which often comes with the biggest price tag). This is absolutely not the case - most of my Belle cosplay is made from our Regular Bi-Stretch Fabric! For the white-coloured garments in my outfit (these were the shirt, the apron, the underskirt and the bloomers), I decided that although cotton would have been a good choice, I did not want something that would crease easily as I would be photographed repeatedly throughout the day when wearing it. I found our Regular Bi-Stretch Fabric to be a fantastic alternative at a purse-friendly price (which was incredibly helpful when I needed to buy so much of it), and it was wonderful to work with as well.
As for the blue parts of my costume (i.e. the dress and the hair bow), I used our Azure Microfibre Fabric. This is another Fabric that does not crease easily; I chose it after studying many photographs of the costumes that cast members portraying Belle in the Disney theme parks wear, because I wanted a fabric with a slight sheen but did not want to use any Satin Fabrics. Microfibre is one of my favourite Fabrics to work with, and I have recommended it to many customers before now.
I made my costume without any dressmaking patterns, but I am sure that there are many available that would help you achieve similar results to my costume if you are hoping to create your own. Both of our Calico Laine branches supply sewing patterns by Butterick, McCalls and Vogue, as well as Kwik Sew (although these are special order only).