Hocus Pocus Costumes In-Depth

I thought I’d go a little more in-depth on our Hocus Pocus costumes than I did on my construction page. I had a lot of fun making them and didn’t get to share it here on my blog as much as I would have liked, since they were supposed to be a surprise!

Firstly I started out by digging up some references and luckily for me they had been on display really recently, at D23. Got some really great references from places like this set on flickr. They were really helpful for seeing a lot of detail, and the actual colour of the costumes, since the movie is so dark.

As I said on my construction page, I started on my costume, Sarah, back in late April/Early May. For the skirt, I found a red eyelet cotton online. I ended up dyeing a little bit darker red.

I used that for the front part of the skirt. I cut some off the top, and attached it along the front to break up some of the pattern. It’s a bit hard to see but I like the way it looked. I pleated that part.

For the green-ish back part of the skirt I had some lightweight green suede leftover from Chase’s Green Arrow, just enough to make the back part of the skirt. I also had some silk chiffon leftover from Arica, which I dyed purple. I tacked all that together and put in a waistband, and a zipper in the back. I left my chiffon a little longer than I should have but it was too much fun to play with 🙂
I did all the tassels along the bottom by threading embroidery thread through the bottom edge. Chase cut it all for me once I had it on to the right length.

For the bodice I used a Tudor era pattern, edited a bit for the shape. I built the base of the corset out of canvas and cotton, which I dyed pink. Put the boning in, and then made the outer piece.

The main part of the corset I made out of silk, backed in cotton. I dyed both, though I couldn’t get the silk quite as dark as I wanted. I embroidered the floral designs on, trying to get it as close as I could to the high-res pics I had (though not so close as to drive me crazy!)

The sleeves were a quandary – I couldn’t find any netting I liked in the colour I needed. I ended up with a yellow that I liked the look of, but I wasn’t having any success with any of my dyeing experiments. I ended up painting them, then hand-sewing them on.

I added the eyelets to the front, and to the straps, though both are non-functioning. I also weathered everything a bit.
For the boots I intended to wear a pair of “witch” boots I had, but they were too uncomfortable and I wore a pair of flat riding boots instead.

For Ash’s costume, Mary, she picked all of the fabric and also styled her own wig. We had fun working on this together. I don’t have a lot of in-progress photos of hers, unfortunately.

We started out by picking up a rough, loosely-woven burlap for the bodice, which I dyed red, and weathered. I used a “wench” pattern, just edited for fit, for both the bodice and the shirt. I made the bodice pretty much according to pattern – it’s lined in cotton, lightly boned and laces up the back. I hand-sewed the rings into the front. The “capelet” was just a square of leftover red fabric, hemmed, and tacked onto the shoulders. The rings along the bottom I made out of sculpey, and handtacked them in place using pieces of the red burlap.

The shirt was as close to the pattern on the actual shirt as we could find locally, and dyed down. I stringed some beads along the neckline, and it functions as a way to gather the neckline once it’s on.

The skirt was just a decent plaid print – I just cut multiple panels, sewed them together, and added an elastic waistband. We added the scrap of the red burlap to the front, not being able to find anything else that looked like the original.

Ash did her own wig – she bought a curly black wig, and we made the shape for the hair out of foam, and covered it in black fabric. We sewed it into the wig, and then covered the form in black extensions.

Once we had that done, we cut the length off the wig, and cut the bangs, and used the loose hair to cover the rest of the wig.

Winnie’s was more difficult, because between the exhibit photos and the movie it was often hard to tell what was going on with it. For hers, I started with a muslin made of some leftover material, and modified a Renaissance dress pattern. Changed up the collar and neckline, and the hem. Got that fitted to Cath, and then transferred it to my fabric – a cotton velveteen. I wish I could have used a silk velvet but it was out of my budget.

To dye it I wrapped my dressform in a garbage bag, pinned the dress on, and loaded up a spray gun with my green dye mixture. I wanted to go with the brighter, more intense green of the actual costume on display instead of the darker look of the movie, so I went with a Kelly Green/Golden Yellow mixture. It took 3 layers. This was after the first layer:

After that I wanted a darker green in places so I went with green and black mixture. I sponged the purple paint on in places, wadding up the fabric and dabbing it on, sort of like tie-dying. I went through a LOT of dye.

I ended up painting the designs on. I had wanted to do it differently but time was running short, so I mixed up a mix of gold, yellow and white paint, and just hand-painted the designs on with a paintbrush. I copied the floral designs on the sleeves, and the symbols down the front, from the high-res exhibit photos I had. I got a little bored towards the bottom and did our initials, and a hidden Mickey 🙂 I didn’t get quite as much painted as I would have liked, it needed some more on the sleeves and down the back, but ah well.

For the underskirts I took some plain white cotton I had and dyed it purple, and just made a simple elastic waisted skirt. I tacked some darker purple material I had leftover from Marie Antoinette around the top hem. I used the same material for the fake under-dress top (it’s sewn into the green dress), and added some of the purple lace I got for the sleeves as an overlay to fancy it up a bit. The lower sleeves I made out of, as I said, a purple lace I bought locally.

The lacing up the front was a thin gold cording I bought – I just hand stitched them in place, though they can still be tightened if need be. The gold bead trim I ended up gluing on – I ran out of time to sew it, though I did get it tacked in a few places just for security’s sake. I was originally going to sculpt the belt buckle, since I had good references of it, but I ran out of time and just popped a couple of large pendants I found at Hancocks on.

Winnie’s wig was my old Black widow wig.

I built up the side sections with foam, covered in fabric, and sewn into the wig cap. I just layered the hair up and over the forms, pinned them, and sprayed them into place with Got2b spray. Once we put it on her, I pulled strands down and pinned them whereever her own hairline was too low for it, to cover her own hair.

For our makeup we all used a light layer of Ben Nye white over our own foundation, dark eyeliner and black eyeshadow. I used a dark purple lipstick, and Cath and Ash both used MAC Ruby Red.