Marie Antoinette / TARDIS version – Doctor Who

Made for: Dragoncon 2011

Background: I’ve had Marie Antoinette on my “want” list for years. I decided to finally go for it this year, and to make my own take on it, instead of basing it on an existing costume.

Journal Entries: Read more at my Marie Antoinette tag

Related Costumes: Time Lord, Pink 18th Century Gown, Green 18th Century Gown

Patterns Used:

I had had Simplicity’s 3635 and 3637 in my pattern collection for a while, so I used both of those for the under-things, and the dress, along with Jean Hunnisett’s Period Costumes for Stage and Screen (which was very helpful.)

Underthings:

I started on my underthings in May, and started with the stays. I used a blue striped cotton for the outer layer, canvas for the interior and another layer of cotton for the lining. (In 2014 when I made my pink 18th century dress, I made new stays, and they are a huge upgrade from these, so anytime you’ve seen me in this costume since 2014, it’s been with the newer pink stays.)

For the panniers, I used a white eyelet cotton and white ribbons and some hooping for the interior structure. I had never made a hoopskirt or panniers or anything like this before and was nervous about it but they turned out all right. Luckily I had bought some hooping for Lady Gaga last year I wasn’t able to use – it was exactly how much I needed for these hoops 🙂 Also made a petticoat out of netting and purple lining material. It has a bias tape waistband.

Dress:

For the dress itself I had planned to use a colour palette of pale blue and white, with floral decorations. I, stupidly, did not order fabric samples and blindly ordered 15 yards of what looked like light blue taffeta. What came was a royal blue taffeta that at first I did not want – I was so mad!! And the store didn’t take returns! But I ended up falling in love with the new colour and decided to go ahead with it. Changed my theme from pale blue springy to dark blue starry night. The dress construction went fairly smoothly, the only change I made was that I lined the front panels of the skirt. I did have some issues with this fabric – early on, I melted a small piece with my iron, so that made me gunshy about ironing it too hot. I did move forward with my iron on a lower setting and a pressing cloth, but in particular the watteau pleats in the back are not as crisply ironed as I would have liked. One of these days I’m going to grow a backbone and iron the shit out of it LOL.

For the underskirt, I had a single piece of white and silver fabric my aunt got for me for Christmas – I didn’t have enough for a full underskirt, so I pleated it, hemmed it and attached it to the underskirt/petticoat at the waistband.

I decided to make a pleated trim out of silver satin for the front trim – I liked how it looked enough (and had so much blue material leftover) that I decided to do a set of blue trim, too, included two circular pieces on each side. I beaded the silver trim with clear glass & crystal beads, and the blue trim with blue crystal beads. It’s very sparkly in real life.

The sleeves are 2 flounces, one of my blue taffeta and one of the silver satin I used for the trim. I added some silver trim to the edge and beaded it (using pearls leftover from my 2003 Arwen costume!)

I left the stomacher until last – I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, initially wanted to do embroidery in similar shades of blue. Eventually I decided to leave it plain, because it seemed like everything I envisioned fought with everything I’d already done and looked too busy. So I did another piece of the pleated trim along the top with some of the silver trim I’d been saving.

Accessories:

For the shoes, I decided to just use a pair I already had, with some bows added. (They were my wedding shoes… glad to have another use for them!) The necklace and earrings I made, also.

Wig:

The wig was fun! I used 3 wigs. I started out with a cheap Marie Antoinette costume wig. (Boy did it look as cheap as it cost!). I used that as the base – it provided a decent amount of “oomph.” I split the back of it open and sewed in an extra foam piece for height. Then I sewed a long plain blonde Godiva wig I already had to the cap of the cheap wig, and layered it over the top of it, gluing and pinning it to keep it in place. Once that was pretty solid, I sewed my “good” wig into the cap also, then layered it up and around the base I’d made, again spraying it and pinning it to stay in place. I decorated it with some pretty pins I got, some pearl trim, and a nice big feather 🙂 I have a more indepth tutorial I wrote as I making it on my blog here.

2011 TARDIS Version:

Because of the colour, I thought it would be fun to also make a TARDIS version of the dress – the whole idea was, if Marie Antoinette met the Doctor, how would she memorialize their meeting? I left all of the extra pieces til right before Dragoncon; I wanted to finish everything else I was making and this was last on the list, because it was something “extra.” I bought a tiny little hat from Spirit to use as the “light” on top, covered it in my leftover fabric. I made the “lantern panes” on it out of white felt covered in silver sequins and rhinestones. Also glued blue sequins around the edge, and put a bow on top.

The “Police Box” banner I made out of black satin, with the phrase heat-transferred on. The windows were made out of white satin and blue ribbon (I remade them in 2013 – using some silver and white brocade with my leftover taffeta for trim and they looked SO much better). The windows and Police Box banner are held on with magnets, so I didn’t have to sew snaps or anything onto the actual dress.

The fan I bought, pulled the fabric off, repainted silver, and re-attached new fabric with the part of the “police telephone” sign heat-transferred to it.

Finally, the under skirt I made out of an old bedsheet and painted the control panel on it. (I picked 11’s because I liked the warm orange tones in contrast to the blue.) I also made a little blue “dinner jacket” for the K-9 my husband made for Dragoncon to match.

2014 TARDIS Version:

For my 2014 version, I wanted to change it up and wear it a different way, because I wanted to wear it in the parade. I ended up sitting the parade out that year, but I still made the “parade version” changes. I bustled the dress up (sadly one came loose and I never noticed, so I was a little lopsided at dcon) and made and painted a new underskirt. The new underskirt is an upgrade, it’s a full underskirt instead of just a panel and the front panel is backed in felt, so it’s much stiffer and doesn’t wrinkle or move like the original one did.

I bought the hat online, steamed it into the shape I wanted, painted it and decorated it with various blue and white flowers, feathers and ribbons. I also didn’t want to wear the wig, so I figured out a way to use my own hair. Very pleased with it 🙂

History: I’ve worn this several more times – one of my favourites! My plan was always to do different underskirts of different Doctor eras, and while I didn’t get very far in that plan, I did at least do 2 which I’m proud of. Who knows, maybe a 3rd is in my future.

Personal note: While I’m very flattered many people like this, and happy for it to be an inspiration, I’d really appreciate it not directly copying my costume. I’ve seen people do direct copies, right down to the non-TARDIS elements, and try to sell them, which isn’t all that nice to see. If you’re going to do a TARDIS costume, the fun thing about it is that you can twist in any kind of way to show your own personality, so have fun doing your own take on it instead of copying somebody’s stale old costume from a decade ago!

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