Belle – Beauty & the Beast / Original Pink Georgian Dress

Made for: Dragon Con 2015

Background: I wanted to remake my Belle “Something There” dress… and I also wanted to make this pink Marie Antoinette dress I’d dreamt about. So I combined them to make an original concept 🙂

Journal Entries: Read more at my Pink Dream Dress

(Patterns Used:
Simplicity 3635 and 3637)

Dress:
So as I said above… last year I dreamed I was at Dragon Con and I was wearing this pink Marie Antoinette costume. I really wanted to make it! In fact it was on my to-do list for Dragon Con next year, but I opted to do Anne Boleyn instead. When looking at my “want” list for this year, two things on it stood out to me: the pink dream dress and remaking Belle’s “Something There” dress. I thought, why not combine the two for an original concept of Belle? So that’s what I did — though, there were multiple times I was considering not calling this Belle at all anymore, which I’ll get into below, but in the end I stuck with it.

The dress itself is made out of a pink silk velvet. I full lined the skirt, since I knew I wanted to bustle them, just wasn’t sure how yet and I wanted to make sure it was all finished on the interior. The bodice is lined in cotton and I had the WORST time getting this to fit. My mock-ups worked ok but I don’t think I pushed them far enough; and of course having to re-do anything on this silk velvet was just plain awful. So I’m not totally happy with how the back fits, especially at the shoulder, but I THINK I’ve figured out how to fix it later on down the road.

I made the trim out of a pink taffeta and a pink/white print cotton, and layered the two on top of each other. The larger taffeta piece is pleated, and the cotton one is pinked and gathered. It ended up being a little bit too long on either side, so I rolled it into a circle and sewed a rose in the middle at the bottom of each side. I also made a length of pink velvet gathered trim, which I used at the elbow and along the front of the top. The two sleeve flounces are velvet and some of the same dyed silk I used for the underskirt, with various lace trims I bought attached to the edges.

I sewed a few crystal beads on the trim, and added roses in places. I bustled the front of the dress onto hooks at the side seams and opted to leave the back down — though I’m not totally happy with the bustling and I think I want to redo it.

The underskirt I made using some silk I had on hand from another project – I dyed it, then painted the roses on using Jacquard fabric paints. I added a pleated edge to the bottom of the hem, and a length of some of the leftover pink taffeta as a trim along the bottom.

Corset:
I was originally going to use my corset from my previous Marie Antoinette dress, but I decided to remake it. I used the same pink & white cotton I’d used on the trim – I culled most of the boning from my old Anne Boleyn/Tudor corset I had replaced last year. I’m fairly happy with it and it’s much more comfortable than my previous version.

Shoes: I would have loved to have afforded some American Duchess shoes but that was not in my budget! While digging around online for Captain Marvel boots, I found some cheap costume witch shoes on clearance for $5, and they were my size, so I bought them. They’re not perfect but for $5?? I painted them white in case the fabric ended up being a little transparent, and covered them in my pink taffeta. I made side sections out of some really annoying brocade I’d bought for this project but decided not to use anywhere else (because it was so annoying). I edged the interior with grosgrain ribbon leftover from the underskirt and laced the front through with some pink satin ribbon. They’re one of my favourite pieces of this costume.

Accessories:
When I originally drew out this concept of my pink dream dress/Belle “Something There” dress, I included a waist sash and a small shawl piece. I made the waist sash out of leftover dyed pink silk – it buttons in the back, and I used two rose buttons leftover from Anne last year, painted white. The front has a white ornamental “buckle” I found at Hobby Lobby. The shawl is some dyed pink silk chiffon which snaps closed in the front, and tucks into the sides/back of the dress. I almost left these two pieces off, and almost gave up on the “Belle” part of the concept – I felt they were making the dress “too much.” I honestly still feel that way but Chase talked me into keeping them! At least I know they are completely removable and I can wear the dress without them at any point.

The panniers, underskirt and stockings are all from my previous Marie Antoinette costume… my panniers need to be remade very badly!! It is looking droopy. My necklace is made out of a piece of the leftover lace, and my husband sculpted a Beast cameo for me to wear with this – I love it!!

Wig:
I decided I wanted to do a “coiffure à l’enfant” look to the hair. I’ve always liked that look and I thought it would be a fun way to interpret Belle’s ponytail style into that era. I bought a “Glinda” wig from Arda and teased it out, pinning pieces back to keep the shape I wanted. I added a lace in the front and wefted the widows’ peak into place (I had wanted to do the whole hairline but ran out of time). I added wefts into the back and curled them, and finally made a big bow out of my leftover taffeta and lace with a few roses tacked onto the center for the bow. In 2017 I decided I just didn’t like how this looked on me, so I brushed out the wig and restyled into something more structured for the white backdrop photoshoot we did that year.

History:
This is one of those costumes that things just did not go well at the con (it was too hot, it was too crowded, I tried to wear it without my underskirt, etc) and there are things I knew from before the con that I want to revisit/redo. I’m hoping to get out and take new photos of it very soon. Fingers crossed I like them better than my con photos.

2018 Update:
In 2018 I decided it was finally time to SIT DOWN and figure out how to make myself happy with this costume. Here are the updates I did:

1. Restyle the wig AGAIN. Maybe 3rd time’s the charm? I restyled it into a looser, softer look – hopefully somewhere between the coiffure à l’enfant I originally wanted and the less “huge” look of the second look. I also took all the roses I cut off the dress and made a flower crown BECAUSE I CAN.

2. The entire bodice section of the dress got overhauled. I took the flowers off the stomacher (they were just too big), dropped the placement of the stomacher a bit (which helped make me not look so “squished”), and most important of all – I let it out anywhere I could. It was always been too tight across the bust and really hard to close. So I let out the pleats on the fashion layer (which left some damaged velvet unfortunately, but it was either that or never be comfortable in it), and I added some stretch panels into the lining to accommodate how much room I got from letting out the pleats. I also replaced the original hook and eye closure with snaps – I can actually close it BY MYSELF now!

3. It wasn’t a big thing… but last year for the white backdrop shoot, I sewed the straps of the corset closed. They kept coming untied so I just sewed them together. It turns out that small amount of length I lost in doing that made the corset UNBEARABLE to wear and made it impossible for me to get into the pink dress anymore. Once I added the ribbons back in and gave myself that inch of length back into the straps, the corset became once again comfortable! (And I probably could’ve gone back to wear the dress as it was before letting it out, but I’d already done that before I figured this out, so oh well!) Funny how such a little change can make a big difference.

4. I FINALLY got the dress bustled in a way I’m happy with. I think I need to anchor it onto the underdress with snaps to keep it from shifting and becoming uneven, but glad to finally have DONE IT.

With the new changes I’m pretty happy with it. I’m so glad I finally made myself do this.

The Barbie Variation:
For Dragoncon 2023 I really wanted to join in the Barbie fun but didn’t have time to make anything, so I thought what do I have in my closet that’s pink?

This is obviously what came to mind, especially because it’s not obviously a specific character. And I’ve always wanted to wear it with my blonde wig from the 2011 Marie Antoinette costume, so this was the perfect choice.

This was fun to wear at Dragoncon – and it was especially nice to finally bring it back to this con, after it’s disasterous debut at dragoncon 2015 where I only wore it for a tiny short amount of time, wasn’t happy with it, and basically had a panic attack over how crowded the con was and how hot I felt in this costume. Getting to bring it back with the 2018 updates, being comfortable and happy in it, and getting lots of nice compliments was a nice redemption for this costume 🙂

                       

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