Fairy Tail Cosplay

Hey all,

In my very first post, I mentioned that I might be making two costumes in the coming weeks; a little mermaid costume for a fancy dress party and Ciel Phantomhive cosplay for my friend for when we go to a nerd convention. Although both of those ideas have now gone down the toilet, in the wake of their slow deaths, a new idea has arisen.

'Fairy Tail'

This new idea is cosplay for myself when I go to said convention with my friends later in the year. This idea is based around the manga/anime 'Fairy Tail', a story about a magic guild of the same name who are believed to be the strongest guild in their kingdom. If you like anime or manga and have never read or seen it, I really advise you do, it can be intense, exciting and funny and is a really enjoyable watch.

My friend K and I discussed at length whether or not to even cosplay despite the fact that our other friend, J, had her heart set on going as somebody and in the end we decided to join the fun.

'Juvia'

As K's cosplay is going to be of the main female protagonists, 'Lucy Heartfilia' (top right), I had considered the dressing as the other main female character, 'Erza Scarlet' (bottom right), so we were much more of a pair. However, I decided she wasn't for me and opted instead for a less important character, although a more amusing one by far. This character is called Juvia Lockser and although originally an antagonist, sees the error of her ways and joins Fairy Tail. Juvia's magical power is ability with water and hence is called on occasion, 'the rain woman'. Due to this, much of Juvia's clothes, as well as her eyes and hair are style blue.

As with many anime characters, Juvia often sticks to one style, either wearing the same clothes all the time, or similar variations. However, despite this, Juvia's clothes go through three distinct phases. The first is the outfit that can be seen left, with the long navy blue coat thin belt at the hips, fur shawl and cossack hat, with a brooch of the emblem of her previous guild, Phantom Lord.

The second phase is far less modest, and the largest leap from her generic style. It features a fitting white shirt and blue bodice with a full-bodied knee-length skirt in two tones. Her accessories for this include a blue hat with white flaps, white boots and long white gloves, both of which feature blue trim, wearing Fairy Tail's emblem once again as a brooch.

Technically there are four phases, but the 'third' is actually a reversion to her original outfit, with very minor changes, such as the Fairy Tail emblem replacing Phantom Lord's.

Therefore her prefer I view as her 'official' third phase as the one with a dark overcoat with fur at both the neck and sleeves, a thick belt clinching the waist and a dark, fur lined hat with a butterfly embellishment. The third outfit is less reserved than the original, but not nearly as outgoing as the second.

These are the three designs I had to choose between. For me the first option wasn't really a choice, though there isn't really anything wrong with the outfit in itself I personally just didn't favour it as much as the other two and of all three of the hairstyles she wears, I wasn't keen on the one she wears with that outfit, leaving two and three. I liked both although I did think that in measures of 'prettiness' outfit 2 was nicer but in that mindset I would have been happy to wear outfit 3 as well. What decided it for me in the end though was not looks but instead that I was going to be wearing this in a warm convention centre, filled to the rafters with people and I didn't want to be uncomfortable, thus I decided on outfit two. It was the only option of the three that did not have a heavy jacket and it was a plus that in the terms of dressmaking, it would need the most work and therefore be the greatest challenge.

Now I had my inspiration, I just needed to figure out how I was going to wear it. As I was trying to mimic the dress as closely as possible, there was no point in sketches so I moved straight on to finding an appropriate pattern.

The Patterns

Typically when I make a dress I will look at two particular companies in search of a pattern; 'McCall's' and 'Simplicity'. Both have a wide range of patterns and are reasonably priced for the most part. However what I was looking for was far more specific than much of what they had in terms of skirts, shirts and corsets and so this time I had to look further. Which was how I stumbled across Jaycotts, one website that has the patterns from mutltiple companies in the one place, including McCall's and Simplicity, which is far more efficient than jumping back and forth between the two websites as I have been doing in the past.

So now I was able to choose between McCall's, Butterick, Vogue, Kwik Sew, Simplicity, New Look and Burda all in one go. Although the first four can all be accessed via the McCall's website and the latter three on the Simplicity New Look website, it's much nicer being able to see them all at once and I was able to scroll leisurely. Finally I found what I was looking for, and although most of them were in fact McCall's patterns that I had missed on their own website, it was a relief after scrolling for at least thirty six pages.

However they were at actual price on Jaycotts and therefore I returned to McCall's own website to purchase them as they currently have a $3.99 sale on all their patterns. 

The first item is a skirt by McCall's (M6706*) - Intended to be the blue underskirt part of the dress.

• It has the right kind of length I'm looking for, with the option to be longer if necessary.
• It also has the right kind of shape, similar to that of Juvia's own skirt
• It also looks as if it has give for an underskirt if necessary.
• Although both the line drawing and the model have the skirt in two tones, it would be more than easy to simply use one material to create the blue section.

Next is the main body of the dress, also McCall's (M6696) - This will serve as the white sleeveless shirt and the white part of the skirt.

• With buttons only applied from the neckline down to the waistband, a button-up dress will become a shirt with a train and therefore (hopefully) lie open over the blue skirt as is the design of the original, making it into a two-tone skirt.
• Although the collars of pattern and original design are different, I don't think that it will make much difference in the end.
• With the overall dress being made with white material, the wave design on the bottom of the skirt is forgotten. However with a thick paintbrush and blue fabric dye, it is likely that the waves will easily be painted on. If the effect of being painted on adds a watery effect, all the better.

The third pattern necessary to complete this outfit is obviously the bodice. This was the hardest item to find a pattern for because Juvia's particular corset is an unusual shape. In the end I did manage to find something, this one by Butterick (B6196)

Juvia's bodice is quite unique with a form-fitting silhouette and thin straps. In some senses it seems somewhat like a corset and in others more like a waistcoat, or simply a vest top. The open top and bottom of the front create difficulties in trying to design something similar, as does the dropping 'v' in the back. Therefore I have settled for a corset pattern, with the intention to do a little altering.

• The first hoop on the corset ties will be missed out in the design process to give the impression of the open slit, as will one or two of the hoops on the bottom.
• The hem of the corset will be brought lower around the back so the bottom lies in a straight line on the body.
• The straps will be thinned out slightly.
• The back will be changed from a 'u' shape to a 'v'.

The fourth and final pattern is the hat, once again by McCall's (M6450)

• The pattern chosen has a nice downward brim with a slit on either side that can easily be turned upwards and will simply need to be given a rounder shape as is with hers. The only issue with this is that the part in the brim is intended to be on the side and I need it on the front, however as this is a round had this probably isn't an issue.
• The embellishment indicated on the pattern will be left off, as will the second layer of the brim, however, I am as yet unsure how to proceed with the swirl design on the middle of the hat.

For now that's all I have, but I'm extremely proud of what I have done so far.

Although this project is all that my weekend revolved around, it's quite absurd to see it written out all in one place. Despite having already posted on this blog, this one is the first that truly exemplifies the original concept of a 'virtual sketchbook'. Usually these things simply swirl around in my head and it's strangely relieving to have it all written down in an orderly manner, so thank you for reading and I hope you come back, whether it be for the next instalment of this project or to read the next archive projects post that should be posted sometime in the coming week.

See you then.

Archive Projects pt.1 - Goddess Dress

Hi,

This is the first post in a series of seven or eight called 'Archive Projects'
The premise of these posts are supposed to be:
1. About projects that have happened in the past - these are all dresses that I have already made and simply wish to share previous ideas and designs.
2. Only one post long - ongoing projects will be posted across several different posts along the stages of the dressmaking process, the Archive Projects posts will be longer posts with all these different stages included and therefore with less detail about each stage.

Goddess Dress

The Situation - Every year my town has a summer festival lasting a week. On the Saturday, at the conclusion of the festival a parade takes place in which multiple groups take part and wear themes costumes. As a member of Girlguiding, I have taken part in this parade for many years, through my time as a brownie, a guide and now a leader with a Rainbow unit. The first time I took part in the parade as a leader our theme was countries from around the world and this was my first attempt at dress making.
The country I chose was Greece and the idea that began to form in my mind was that of something relating to the marble statues of the Greek goddesses.

The research - Unfortunately the document I had the research pages on have been lost due to a faulty hard-drive. But I recall taking my time to thoroughly search Google images for ideas.
Here are some examples similar to those I examined then.

I began with looking at the Goddesses themselves. Admiring the long flowing skirts and
the way the material folds and falls.

                    ATHENA


                        APHRODITE

Next was looking at modern takes on the style, as that was what people are familiar with and would identify with.

Again I was seeing long skirts, layers and folds. A trend I was also noticing was that, as with these two examples above, was that gold was a staple colour for waistbands and trim.

The design - Next was taking my research and using it to put together a design of my own personal style.

In the end I had two designs, the first was slightly more elaborate, with 'wings' and a complicated strap.

However when it came to production of the dress, I decided this was too complicated for a beginner and redesigned.

This was the redesign - a much simpler silhouette, wings gone, trim removed from the neckline.

The gold crossed waistline was not intended to be sewn into the dress, but instead either, thin belts, crossing over or ribbon. Therefore, leaving only the main dress to be sewn together.





The production - My first mission was to collect material - as this was my first go, I knew nothing of the joys of going into a fabric shop, examining the walls of multicoloured fabric, feeling the textures of the materials and losing yourself to a world of dressmaking. Instead I settled for the lining of an old curtain as it was only a white dress and made do with what I had.

Again, as this was my first attempt I had no notion of patterns, and simply did my best, using my body and a tape measure to make guesses with, my mum assisting me as much as she could, barely knowledgeable in dressmaking herself - but her grandmother had made clothes for her and her brother when they were younger and she did her best with what she could remember.

Finally the dress was made, it wasn't good, it wasn't fancy, for the most part it could be described as a large pillowcase with holes for my arms, legs and neck, but for the purpose I wanted it for, it would do.
I couldn't find any belts in the high street shops and finally wandered into my local fabric shop for the first time in search of gold ribbon. It wasn't special or memorable or anything magical but looking back, as cheesy as it sounds, it was the beginning of an era. That day was the first time I knew what it meant to stand in front of shelf upon shelf of ribbon reels, admiring the different colours, materials, thicknesses and fighting with myself on which one I wanted.

In the end, this is the one I chose, gold and shimmery, a rough texture that adds to the golden shine and an inch in thickness.

Unfortunately all photos of the final design were also lost with the original research and the dress no longer exists to take new photos with. - The lining of the next dress in this series was actually made from the material used in this one and honestly, it was probably for the best.

Looking back - From a technical viewpoint it was a bad dress, it was badly constructed and I should have unquestionably used a pattern but it wasn't the worst to look at for a beginner. The ribbon probably should have been sewn on as I spend most of the parade sorting it back into place, but on the other hand I'm glad I didn't because I still have the ribbon, which I can use again in the future.

It hadn't turned out exactly the way I had imagined but I learnt from that first experience and the next dress was much more of a success. So look out for my next post which will be on it, the Skittle Dress.

Somewhere to Dress

Hi there people of the internet.

I am a writer (my other blog, somewhere2open-cw.blogspot.co.uk is where I hardly ever write but if you fancy crap short stories feel free to take a look) and as a writer I have plenty of free time for hobbies.
One of those hobbies is being an amateur dressmaker and to this date I have concocted six or seven dresses, and altered a jacket.

I really like doing this and I put a lot of effort into them but other than the finished result only I ever see the effort that goes into them so I really want to share my ideas with other people, hence this blog.
Somewhere to Dress is going to be a virtual sketchbook where I can post ideas and progress of projects as they go along and eventually the final product.

In a few weeks I intend on starting a new project on a Little Mermaid dress for a fancy dress party and have proposed an idea to a friend of mine who is going to a nerd convention later in the year for Ciel Phantomhive from the anime Black Butler, so watch out for those.

I think another little project that might be cool would be to showcase what I have already done in elaborate blog posts for each outfit so keep an eye out in the coming weeks.

Thank you for visiting Somewhere to Dress, I hope you come back.

C Wilson

(p.s If you're seeing this before 16th of May 2014 sorry for the simplicity of the blog, after that date I'll be editing it so its unique to this project)