General Leia- Star Wars: Poe Dameron Comic Series

Made for: The Great Drought of 2020

Background: I thought this would be a fun project – comic based costumes allow for so much more creativity and interpretation!

Journal Entries: Read more at my Blue Glitter Leia tag

Patterns Used:
Dress skirt portion, dress upper portion, capelet base bodice

Planning:
I liked how this costume, in the comics, had the silhouette and hair snoods of Padme’s Picnic Gown. I thought it would be a fun, quick and easy project to do over the winter. I decided I’d do the costume as 3 pieces – a top/capelet, and basic underdress, and the bodice. I got everything I needed for this costume at Joann – that’s something I miss about doing comic costumes – you’re free to interpret the fabric as you like, so I’m not walking in looking for something specific. I got a “silky solid” for the base dress and outer layer of the bodice, gold trim from Yaya’s trim collection, and I could NOT say no to blue glitter fabric for the capelet. I mean it’s Carrie… glitter is always on the table.

Dress:
I used for the basic skirt shape of the dress. That choice was pure laziness, because I still had it out from Raddus Bridge Leia. LOL. I basically just folded over the pattern at the waistline and only cut out the skirt portion.

I had a grand idea of making the base dress as a comfortable everyday maxi dress I could wear outside of costuming. So I grabbed the first pattern I saw that had a tanktop/spaghetti strap look which ended up being this one.

I lined the top portion of the dress, put a zipper in the back and finished the hem of the skirt by hand. I was overall pretty happy with the way it came out – except, it’s way too long to try to wear as an everyday maxi dress, and I don’t particularly like where the waist hits me. But it’s fun to spin around it, works great for the costume, and since it’s such a plain piece it may be useful for future costumes.

Capelet/Top:
This was the most interesting part of the build. I started out with this pattern, because it had a square neckline that I thought would work well as a base. I pinned the pattern pieces onto my dressform, folded it over and wrote some notes on it, then took those pieces and used them to cut out some lining material as a mock-up.

I made a few more tweaks in the mockup stage but it didn’t need much – I was able to use the mockup panels as lining for the main portion of the jacket. The top in the comic has some lines on the front that look like vertical seams, so to recreate that I cut the glitter fabric into strips, sewed them together, then used the mockup/lining panels to cut them into the correct shapes. It was a lot of work that completely disappeared once it was assembled. You can’t see all those seams at all LOL. Oh well, I tried and therefore no one should criticize me. LOL.

Originally I was going to do a front closure on the top, so I left the front opening unfinished and moved onto the sleeves/capelet piece. Having a dressform with arms was invaluable for draping this! I basically took one long rectangular piece of the glitter fabric and pinned it on the back as I wanted it – pleating it to fit, and then curved it around the bottom of the sleeve. It was tricky to sew on – I was able to do most by machine but some of the ends around the sleeves had to be done by hand. I also added one more small panel to the sleeve section. Overall I was very happy with how that part came out!

Like I said, originally I was going to make it a front closure. I finished the front edges of the “jacket” and then started to mark snap placement… when I realized I could very easily pull it off and on over my head. So I just sewed it closed. To keep it from shifting, I made band for the lower edge out of the leftover blue glitter fabric and threaded some wide elastic through it.

Bodice:
Bodice was fairly straight forward. I used my trusty old Simplicity 5006, minimal boning, using some leftover white cotton as lining. Outer layer is the same “silky solid” fabric from the underdress.

The gold trim I bought at Joann – originally thought I’d have to alter the sizing a bit to look right, but it ended up being fine as is! I hand-sewed it in place on the bodice once it was finished.

Accessories:
The two necklaces and tiara I made out of the leftover gold trim from the bodice. I had a thinner version of the trim I used for the tiara and smaller necklace, and I found some various jewel/stone pieces to use in the center. The necklaces velcro on, and the tiara I just pin on under the snoods. Bracelets I bought.

The snoods were the biggest problem I had with this whole costume. I went through so many different ways of doing these – the biggest time suck was me trying to braid embroidery floss and then sew it into a fishnet pattern. I got two of them made – after hours of work – and hated them. Eventually I finally came across a gold lace fabric on etsy that looked nice – ordered it, and it worked perfectly. I was able to just cut out a circle and put elastic in the ends. But I wasted a lot of time on them before that. I made 3 snoods all together – the 2 larger ones from the front buns and a smaller one for the small bun in the center back.

The shoes I wore for the white backdrop shoot were some blue heels I had. They ended up being too small so whenever I actually get to wear this somewhere… I’ll get new shoes.

History: I mean… I made it and then everything got canceled so outside of me wearing it for a tiktok video and doing a white backdrop shoot, it has no history. LOL.

                       

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