Beauty & the beast the beast dress diary

by Heidi • 2015 - 2016

I spent over a year making this princess gown, redesigning the bodice seven times before I was happy with the results. (If you're interested in construction details, there's a dress diary.) Surprisingly, I wear this costume often; at least once a month for Fairy Princess Storytime. It is part of a couples costume - I also made an outfit for the Beast.

I made the jacket, vest, jabot and cuffs using McCall's pattern 4626. It was easy enough to assemble and since the fit is quite relaxed there were no problems.

The werewolf mask and gloves (clawed hands) were purchased at a Halloween store. I'm not ready to get into epic mask building at this point, so the werewolf accessories work quite well to get the point across. (Plus, now Scott has something to wear when he drinks a pina colada at Trader Vic's.)

2015 - 2016 • by Heidi • self-drafted pattern

I spent over a year on this princess gown, rebuilding the bodice seven times. It was difficult to get the sleeves / collar to look flattering while still maintaining a reasonable level of movie accuracy. I wear it often at a storytime event for children, and I've been surprisingly pleased with how well the skirt holds up even when excited boys and girls are stepping on it. A more challenging task was designing a bodice that can't be ripped off the shoulders by toddlers grasping my hair during photo ops.

Patterns used: Style 2757, McCall’s 3315, Vogue 2810