Moulin Rouge

An ambitious costuming project to take on for my broadening interest in costuming, this dress is from the Moulin Rouge movie and although rarely seen on film is one of my favourites. There are a lot of firsts for me in this costume from intricate patchwork to corsetry.

Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Total Time: 60 hours

Putting it all together involved a lot of items, but I was happy with the end result.

Grey Bowler hat - purchased from ebay.
Blue shirt - purchased and altered to short sleeves.
Waist Cincher - Handmade with article here
Vest - Handmade with article here
Skirt - Handmade with article here
Bloomers - Handmade with article here
Shoes - Second hand store platform shoes

Moulin Rouge - Urchin CanCan Skirt

The patchwork looked to be the most time consuming part of this project and I decided that I would begin there because it was something I thought I could manage with minimal advise. If I didn't make a start I thought I never would!

I bought ten colours of cotton quilters material and spent around 5 hours with a hexagon template cut from cardboard drawing hexagons and cutting material... What a job! Each Hexegon is 12cm across in each direction giving me a centimetre seam allowance all the way around. I tried to keep the colours in darker neutral shades as I interpret the photos from the Moulin Rouge.

Just when I thought I would surely slip into madness it was over and I could begin sewing... right after I ironed every single patch (another tedious task).

The sewing progressed a lot quicker than I thought and after not too much deliberation I had two rows of patches sewn. I decided to sew concentric circles of patches so that I ended up with a circle without any obvious break in the pattern.

Over several days and several more hour long sessions I was up to the sixth row of patches. Although I thought it would be more difficult the hexagon shapes are joining together quite easily. I think sewing them in circles helps to fix any small errors that may creep in.

Of course I am not too worried about this being completely flat like a quilt, but I was worried that keeping it in two pieces would warp the pattern when it came to sewing up the sides. My original idea was to sew a zip or some kind of fastening into either side to enable the skirt to be put on without breaking the pattern with anything. I think now that I will use elastic around the waste as this should be covered with the waist cincher.

I finally found the colour for the petticoat ruffles! I don't know how many times I've freeze-framed the movie looking for shots of urchin and finding only a few un-useful shots. The screen capture I found shows Urchin’s petticoats which are purple; very different from the design sketches. What great timing for me, merely hours from going shopping for the petticoat material (which I nearly bought in cream two days ago!)

I bought cotton voile in three colours - black, plum and floral plum. The black was used as a base for the ruffles which is a simple circle skirt 80cm long. Next I mass produced ruffles by cutting lengths 13cm wide and doing a rolled hem on one side and a zigzag on the other. A machine that can do a rolled hem is extremely handy to have. Cotton voile apparently doesn't fray if it is ripped along the weft, but I didn't want to take any chances and I have a lovely finish even though it took much longer.

Eight layers later the ruffles are starting to look great and took 5 metres of material to construct. The plum was not as wide as the patterned material so I had initially bought three metres of it and two of the patterned. The first ruffle took 6 metres of material and the 8th took 4 metres.

A few more layers and I'll be up to my waist and able to attach the patchwork to the other side. These layers took me another 4 evenings to complete and believe me I am very tired of ruffles!

I realized that I had extremely underestimated the amount of material I would need for the grey border around the bottom of the skirt. I had bought only half a metre, but I really need a complete circle strip because a straight stip would not sit flat because the skirt is constructed from a simple circle skirt pattern. I bought 3 more metres of grey but as it was only 114cm wide I had to improvise for the back and cut it out of two pieces.

I have just made enough patchwork to go up to the grey border which was constructed out of two half circle strips. The ruffle skirt was attached around the grey border and then the patchwork was trimmed to the waist and attached to the waistband. One problem I encountered was not only that the black ruffle base was slightly larger than my patchwork circle (despite careful measuring), but also that the ruffles are so heavy that I had to use umpteen tacking stitches under the first ruffle into the inner side of the grey border to hold the ruffles in place better.

More photos of the construction on flickr.

Moulin Rouge - The Rest

Other construction photos for these items can be found on flickr.

Vest

The vest was drafted using a tank-top as a base. I created a basic shape then sketched out the details on my dress model until I was happy with the appearance. Then I constructed it out of my materials. I used my machine to do the button holes and hand stitched the buttons. It took about 6 hours to make and cost $16. One thing I would do differently next time is to fit an adjustable strap across the back at about waist level because closer inspection of the movie after I had completed this part shows that the vest actually has a little strap or tie there.

Corset / Waist Cincher

I used a simple pattern out of one of Gosu Rori Magazine Vol 7 which I will have to make again for another project. I constructed a mockup just to test if I would need to add or subtract anything from the pattern, and although it was hard to tell at this stage it seemed to work alright so I started with my nice material.

The instructions did not include boning, however I fitted in 8 rows of poly-boning to give it some strength and stability. I got the eyelets done at Dragons Blood Creations, where they do professional eyelets for a very reasonable price. They gave me a tip that the boning actually has to go next to the edge of the material, so next time I will know better. It took me approximately 12 hours and $25 to complete.

Bloomers

I drafted my own pattern based on a pattern out of Gosu Rori Magazine Vol 5, but largely made up as I went along with my own measurements and guesstimates. I feel that drafting this pattern was the first time that I had confidently drawn out the diagram and been assured that it would fit without too many problems. I cut the legs much longer than I was going to need them and cut off about 10cm after sewing the four pieces together. This is a fantastic, well-fitting shorts pattern that I intend to use again.

After cutting the legs to the length I wanted I hemmed them and then attached some garter lace. I completed these in one evening and they cost me $22 to make. I have a suspicion that the movie version may have been made out of the same colour material as the corset, though I did mine black, because although I cannot find a reference picture for Urchin's bloomers some of the other cancan dresses with corsets showed bloomers in the same colour.

Vinyl Dress

My first lolita dress is from Gosu Rori magazine Vol 6. The hardest part of this costume was the invisible zip and working with the slippery vinyl.

Difficulty: Medium
Total Time: 51 hours

The dress itself consisted of a petticoat skirt, under dress, overdress and a hairpin. Gosu Rori magazines have pattern sheets in the back with pages of instructions (in Japanese of course) which I needed to decipher.

Underdress

With this part of the outfit I felt like I really started utilising my dress-dummy for the first time. Because my breasts are quite a lot larger than a typical Japanese girl I had several issues with this pattern. Initially I knew that the body of the pattern would fit because it was directly adapted from the overdress pattern which I had done a mockup for. So I sewed the main parts together and pinned it in approximately the right spot on my manaquin. The straps were a real trial. I had at one stage about 6 paper variations and got so sick of cutting little pieces of paper that I ended up just making on to see how it went and luckily it seemed to work.

The invisible zip was another episode entirely and I think I will write a seperate article about that. I learnt from a friend that you need to buy an invisible zip foot from your local sewing shop (ie Spotlight). I fitted the foot to my machine and spent a while looking at how it was it would work. Then I tested it on a spare zip I had bought and it was a DISASTER! The foot kept slipping sideways and I would end up sewing over the zip and at one point I got so angry that I just had to stop and nearly gave up entirely.

After wishing I had 6 arms I managed to hold the zip (which I basted first - yes basting is sometimes very handy so don't be slack!), the foot, the material, put the foot down and work the machine (phew) and somehow slowly and miraculously I got the zip sewn in.

The front was interesting again and I completed the ruffles on the bottom well before I had solved the problem of how I would cover my boobs. I had already followed the pattern which just did not work although it looked great on my dummy at which point my friend gave me another idea. Put your bra on your dummy! So thats right, my dress-dummy now wears a stuffed bra and I am thinking of making something a little more permanent.

I ended up with a piece about three times bigger than the pattern which is gathered along the bottom and has lace and elastic along the top. That was sewn in carefully and thankfully not only covered my modesty, but also looked great!

Overdress

Firstly a warning for everyone: Vinyl does not take kindly to pins or unpicking because you will end up with small holes in your fabric. I had to draw each piece of the pattern with tailors chalk because I could not pin my pieces to the material. I did pin around the outside of the pattern though so that the material would not slip and I utilised pins carefully when doing the ruffles in areas inside the seams.

Secondly vinyl is slippery. While sewing the pieces wasn't too hard because there is a material-like backing, I wanted to sew the seams so that there were two lines of stitching parallel to the seam. I had to reduce the tension of the feeders so that they would not leave marks on the front of my garment and carefully help the fabric through the machine by pulling from the back as I slowly stitched. The effect though was very very nice.

The ruffles were quite fiddley to complete and time consuming to gather evenly and then pin and slowly sew. Each seam has stitching next to the seam and this is the reason why the ruffles sit so nicely because the seams are actually pressed  flat and open when the secondary stitching is complete.

The zip in this case was quite easy and I chose a nickel coated open ended jacket zip. Also the fold lines that I originally had from my material being stored for a month fell out over the period of sewing. Do NOT iron your vinyl, but you can apparently heat it softly with a hair dryer and any creases you do get will fall out. I did not try this as the weight of the garment hanging on my dress-dummy meant the creases disappeared during construction.

Unfortunately I don't have many progress shots of this part of the costume because I ended up doing most of the construction over two long nights and I completely forgot! The only thing this progress shot is missing is the bottom ruffle and a couple of hook and eye clips on the collar.

Hair Pin

The pattern for the hairpin consisted of about two dozen little hearts - 8 large, 5 medium and 7 small - and a circle for the back. Each heart is folded and then sewn along the bottom. Then each heart is sewn in a circle. I found it easier to sew each heart together one by one rather than trying to pin and sew all of them at once.

The layers are built up. You can see from the image that i have two hearts that I have not sewn in yet (they went in the middle of the 5 hears small circle sewn in by hand) and in the image I have already hand sewn the small set of hearts to the medium set. Next I sewed the two small hearts into the middle and then sewed the large hearts together. The circle covers the seams and then the bobby pin is sewn to that.

This is quite a large flower, but it is extremely effective and I got several positive comments though I don't know if many people realised that I had made this part of my costume as well.

Kaname Chidori

This is my first cosplay for AVCon 2006. The hardest part of this costume was the fitted jacket, and then wearing the wig because it is quite heavy and goes everywhere!

I spent over a month compiling parts for this costume. I found a blue wig that was 47.5" long on ebay and managed to buy it for only AU$40 including shipping. Since the shoes are only going to be worn for two days, I got a pair of white and pink shoes for only $20, going more for the overall look than the comfort. I got a pair of knee-high socks for only $3 and a white shirt to go underneath for $20.

Kaname's Jacket
Pleated Skirt

Ribbons
The ribbons are one rectangle folded into the middle, a second rectangle about 2/3rds the size of the first not folded, and a small rectangle to hold them both in place in the middle. One is attached to a badge back for my neck and the other is attached to a hair tie for my wig. I used the description from a Gosu Rori magazine to help work out how to make a nice looking bow.

Kaname's Jacket

I started the jacket off with a simple pattern from my Gosu Rori vol 6 magazine. The jacket originally had three pieces for the back and two pieces either side for the front width a zip down the middle. I needed to alter the back to have a centre seam and work out the strange horizontal seam for the front, however my pattern had the advantage of having a vertical seam down the front on either side, so I thought I was half way there.

After making the mock up, I found that the sleeves were not fitting me properly and I forgot to leave a large excess on either side of the front. I added another piece of material and then pinned the whole thing onto my dress form. It took me a little while to get my head around what I was actually doing. I pinned the front so that I got a fold that looked to me like the natural fall of a collar then sketched this out with tailors chalk. Then I tried to follow a basic shape for the fold over front and cut this out, trying to make the other side the same as well.

Then I tentatively cut my mock up into pieces to make the new pattern. This was probably the most nerve wrecking part! Finally I had sewn my next mock up and I tried to make the sleeves a little larger as well. After trying it on I found that I was fairly happy with my pattern, but the upper arm was still a little tight and would need to be altered again.

I bought 3 metres of cotton drill in white, though now I can see that two would have been plenty. I got the extra incase I made a huge mistake. I cut all my pieces again and then found my blue material and spent most of the day wondering how I would do the blue vertical stripes on the front. I ended up cutting two lengths of blue about an inch wide and sewing them between the white. This meant that my pattern was thrown slightly out because it is 1cm wider due to the blue. I widened the sleeves at the top, and had to carefully pin these in before I could sew them. This meant another alteration to the overall pattern as they now come down below the horizontal line. They are still a little tight, but much better than they were and I have had enough of altering for this costume!

Before sewing on the collar I tried the jacket on again and then put it back on the dress form. Something wasn't quite right and I ended up unpicking the horizontal seam at the bust back to the blue line and taking about 1.5cm off it. It sits a lot better with that small alteration.

The collar was quite hard, and I'm sure that there is an easier way, although I also think that perhaps if i wasn't trying to end up with a blue collar on a white jacket (or if it was done out of a thinner material) then the task would have been easier. I cut the collar pattern out of white and blue, then sewed the white onto the jacket. Next I sewed the blue onto the white and pressed it into place so that I could sew where it folds into the neck too. It was quite frustrating to get it just right and I don't have a lovely collar coming to a point. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I just don't know what else I can do to get the effect.

I have adjusted the side of the jacked and the blue lines and am now happier with the way the jacket is sitting. This process took an extra 4 or so hours however, so I have really blown out my time estimate on this garment.

The cuffs here easy. I used more blue material to create two thin lines of blue and then slightly pleated in the back of the sleeve until it was the same size as the cuff. The circumference of the cuff was the minimum size I could still fit over my hand because I did not want to use fastenings on them.

Pleated Skirt

I bought 1.5 metres of cotton drill in the closest colour I could find for its durability and ease of sewing. I cut two lengths 50cm wide (which left heaps for the hem - I cut off 12cm in the end) and joined them together, then pleated enough for a 1m length. I prefer to sew the pleats down seperately to attaching the waist band, which you can see in the first photo below. Each pleat is 3cm wide with 2cm between each one (mainly to use a little less material), therefore while the skirt is 85cm in circumference I used roughly 2.5m of width to achieve this. To pleat I measured 3 lots of 3cm then 2cm and so on, then each 3cm part gets folded in to form a pleat.

The "invisible" zip went in next, although I am not sure if I quite have the hang of those yet. Perhaps there is a technique I am not aware of. At least a pleat will cover the small amount of exposed zip. The waist band is a simple matter of measuring a strip that will go around your waist and sewing it down. I used the machine for the first side, then hand sewed the inner band as I find this much easier and quicker after trying methods both by hand and machine on my medieval clothing. I also hemmed the bottom by hand and then ironed each of the pleats into place.

This skirt is for Kaname Chidori cosplay.