Marie Antoinette Construction Guide

Let me start off this guide by saying that this dress was a joint effort between Meg and myself. It took about a year to complete, and ended up costing me over $1,000. This is my most treasured costume, and is also my most delicate and painful, which is why you don't see me wearing it very often.

Q) How did you discover this dress?

While running random searches for costume ideas, Meg came across photos of Japanese women in some absolutely amazing stage costumes. Something called "Takarazuka". Intrigued by the costumes and the little bit of information we could find, we ordered both Rose of Versailles 2001 musicals. We fell in love with the characters and the elaborate costumes. Marie Antoinette's signature red dress instantly caught our attention and we slowly began working on the dress in June of 2004.

Q) How do you get the designs onto the fabric?

Before any embroidery can be done, the costume pieces needed to be patterned out. Meg hand drafted the patterns for the entire dress on large sheets of tracing paper. Once the patterns were sketched out, we pulled out our Rose of Versailles program book (Cosmos Troupe 2001) and drew the designs onto the pattern pieces. After that was completed, I'd lay the tracing paper on top of the fabric and use a pencil to go over the motifs. This puts a light pencil line right onto the fabric from the tracing paper. The pencil lines were too light to see on the fabric, so after I finished tracing everything, I put the tracing paper aside and went over the lines again.

As soon as that step was finished, the fabric was placed in a large embroidery hoop and the long hours of embroidery began!

Q) Do you really embroider the whole thing by hand? How long does that take?

A) Yes. It took us about a year to complete. We worked on it during our spare time in the evenings and on the weekends.

Q) What kind of embroidery floss did you use?

A) We used two kinds, both purchased at Hobby Lobby. DMC (which I hated, it tangles easily and the metallic cover kept flaking off) and Janlynn (which I loved, no tangles and it didn't flake).

Q) Did you make the corset and pannier? What patterns did you use?

The corset coutil/boning/hoop steel came from Farthingales in Canada (I believe the total cost was somewhere around $100). This book has excellent historical costume patterns altered for the stage, so it was perfect for our pannier needs. The Takarazuka dress is not period accurate, so we had to alter the historical pattern to give us a more oval shaped skirt that the Takarazuka dress has. The corset pattern was purchased from J.P.Ryan and altered a bit for my short torso. I'm wearing my petticoat in the photos because the hoop skirt is really ugly ;)

Q) Did you use a pattern for the dress?

A) NO. There are no patterns for this particular dress, everything was drafted by Meghann.

Q) How big is the hoop skirt?

A) Five feet wide at the bottom. As a friend pointed out, I'm almost as wide as I am tall ;)

Q) How is it all connected?

The dress is broken down into four parts: Bodice, Overskirt, Underskirt, and Cape. The Bodice and overskirt are sewn together, parting in the center so the embellishments on the underskirt can be seen. The bodice zips up the back. The underskirt embroidery began once the bodice embroidery was finished. The sleeves were next, and they took a ridiculously long time to finish. Once the embroidery was finished the sleeves were sewn onto the bodice, little white bows were made and attached, and lace was sewn around the neckline. We found some rhinestone trim and added it to the neckline as well. Swarovski crystals and glass beads were sewn all around the bodice. We used a couple hundred beads on the costume, as well as 200 crystals and several yards of rhinestone trim. Five different kinds of lace were used, and most of it was hand-gathered into place. We cheated a bit with the cape and made it a mock saque-back as we needed our dress to zip up the back (true saque-back dresses open in the front and we couldn't do that). The cape attaches to the bodice under the top row of lace.

The overskirt embroidery was the final project, I started on it in January and finished in May. Once finished, Meg and her mad sewing skills took over, completing the overskirt and attaching it to the bodice. The sewing machine did not like sewing through all that fabric.

Miscellaneous Questions

Q) What do you wear under that thing?

A) Underneath everything you'll find me in a tank top and my favorite pair of grey pajama shorts :)

Q) Is it comfortable?

A) There's an initial "OMG I CAN'T BREATHE" feeling as the corset is laced up, but after about ten minutes I start feeling better and after an hour I'm pretty much numb ;)

Q) How do you get through doorways?

A) Sideways.

Q) Will you bring this to (blank) convention?

A) This costume is very difficult to pack and it requires two people to put it on me. Unless I'm specifically asked to wear it to a convention, it will remain in my closet for a while.

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