Parade Gown

PADME PARADE GOWN CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION TIME 3 MONTHS

White Dress

5 meters of Ivory top quality thick Bridal Satin
1 meter of ivory polyester
1 Cream Zip (for centre dress)

CAPE

3 metres polyester Chiffon thicker quality to make cape

10 metres of light weight better quality Polyester Chiffon in Ivory
(Used for petals on the cape)

Pink & Yellow fabric dyes for petals

PARASOL

Bike Spokes soldered to the outer metal rim

1 &1/2 metres of Chiffon un-dyed used for the Parasol

Long string of White sequins to edge parasol

Glitter glue for swirl design on Parasol

MAIN DRESS

I used pattern McCalls 9456, put together as per instructions.

Finished dress. Only the top was lined around the neck.

Tie with Naboo Emblem

I first cut out a long tie ( see shape below in tutorial), I then used tracedown paper to draw the design onto the cape.

The symbol was scanned from an original picture and enlarged. I then used “Trace Down” paper to put the image on the material. I used acrylic paint to fill in the design.I painted the design inside an outline of the finished tie and used a light weight backing material for the back piece.

I used a hair piece extension clip behind the top of the tie, so it can be easily attached to the front of the dress.

Finished tie.

THE CAPE

I used Burda pattern 2566 cape pattern.

Although not shown here, there were 5 different sizes of petal, ranging from 30cm in height for the bottom rows, to 10cm for the top rows. I didn’t use a pattern for these, but cut them similar to a pocket shape. Altogether there were 308 pieces cut of various sizes. These were then turned over at the top and a running stitch used to gather the petal after it has been dyed.

Die tubs of Orange & Yellow

The petals were dyed in different directions, some with yellow at the top, some with pink, I also dyed them vertically as well in two colours, for variety. Some petals were left their natural colour and some were dyed just one of the colours.
Then each petal was gathered at the top and tied with a knot.

Gathered petal.

Starting at the bottom with the largest petals, they were then layered getting progressively smaller towards the top.

This shows the back view of the finished cape.

This shows how the cape looks over the dress. To make sure the cape did not fall off the shoulders, I used hair extension clips on the edge of the cape to be attached to the neck of the dress and also took a length of 1” white ribbon and attached it at the half way point on the shoulders inside the cape, this then was tied underneath the arms. On some of the exhibition photos, this ribbon can be seen tied across the chest, but it is in fact supposed to be under the arms where it cannot be seen.

THE PARASOL

At the centre is a ring of metal, which had 20 holes put into it. Then I threaded the bike spokes through the holes and soldered over them.

Each spoke had to be 9.7mm apart, then a ring of wire was put around the edge to stop the spokes from moving. You can see on this picture, the thread at the end of each spoke, which has to be outside the wire.

Here is the completed wheel.

I then placed the wheel on the chiffon and cut around it slightly larger than the ring, you will need 4 pieces altogether, two on each side of the wheel.

Spray mount adhesive on one piece of chiffon and place the second piece on top. Then put the wheel on next. Spray adhesive on this and place another piece of chiffon on the wheel, spray again and place the last piece of chiffon on top, to create a sandwich. Stretch slightly to take out the wrinkles and leave to dry.

Neaten the edge by turning the material over the wire and make sure the spokes are sticking out. I ran a line of stitching to secure it then cut off the surplus.

I then attached the string of sequins around the edge to hide the sewing line.

Using a close up picture of the back of the parasol for reference, I pencilled the scroll lines from the middle outwards. I then used a small applicator bottle with a small nozzle, and filled it with multi coloured glitter glue to draw over the pencilled lines.
The finished parasol. When you buy your spokes from the bike shop, you can also purchase the “nipples” that are used inside the bike wheel, these are used at the end of the spokes as decoration pieces as I could not make a copy of the original design.

Finished parasol.

Some people have gone to extraordinary lengths to attach the parasol to the cape using gadgets and gizmos to hold it on, but the final solution is quite simple. Put the cape on and place a mark at centre back where the parasol will sit, making sure the centre of the parasol is in line with the neck. (You may need two people for this bit). Then lay the cape on the floor and sew through the back of the cape through to the parasol attaching it from the outer edge to the middle, only sew about 4 or 5 spokes.

WIG

This hairstyle was tricky to do and required a few hands in the end to help style. I am still now only 50% happy with it, though this is how I tried to do it in the end.
Bought a really long straight Dark Brown Hair Wig with a centre parting.

Then pulled all the hair backward across the top of the head into a very tight Ponytail.

I then split it into 5 sections as shown in photo, placing a small rubber band around each tail so I wouldn’t loose any hair from the tails.

I then folded 4 tails in half to create a kind of Bunch/loop as shown in photo. I left the bottom tail loose for now. Once you’ve folded your tails in half I placed another very small elastic band to hold the bunches in place. I cut of any excess hair. I then place pieces of thin foil ribbon around where I put the elastic bands around the bunches, hence now hiding the bands.

To create the 5th & 6th bunch I took the last ponytail that was hanging on the bottom split it in half. I then took the top piece of hair I’d split & pulled it upward to create the bunch at the top of the head, folding the hair in half again folded over. I then took the bottom piece of hair and folded that in half underneath and pulled it towards the bottom. Then placed final 2 Silver foil bands on final 2 bunches.
Note: The bunches do not hold up on their own, after making each bunch I had to secure them with lots of Brown hair grips, griping the bunch to the wig.

Construction of the Head Piece Jewellery

Items needed:
1mm wire
Solder
Soldering iron
3mm diamanté x 39
Short length of 2mm diamanté chain
6 short lengths of “Figaro” or similar chain
5mm Jump rings
Blu-tac

Measure across the forehead to get the finished Dimensions of the head piece. Lay out the diamanté, equally spaced, across and down. These should be laid upside down on the blue tack.

Lay a piece of wire across the first line, use a blob of blue tack at either end to support the wire. Then solder the wire to the backs.

Using the same method, solder the wires
Diagonally across the backs. Leave at least 4 cm of extra wire at the ends. Note, the turned up wire 3 diamanté down, this will be used to support the side decoration.

Using a short piece of 2mm diamanté chain, slide the diamanté together and lay a strip of solder across the back to hold it, then put the strip under the end wires at the side and solder the back. Take 3 jump rings and solder them onto the side on each side of the head piece.

Bend the wires very carefully between the diamanté to make scallop shapes. Cut off any extending wires. Cut off three of the 2mm diamanté from the chain and solder one each below the outside crystals and one in the middle.

Solder a 4mm diamanté at the end of each “drop”. Cut 6 lengths of Figaro chain, the top one is 7cm long, the middle ones are 8cm and the bottom ones are 9cm. This creates a swag effect.

Attach to the jump rings on the head piece, then attach all three to a jump ring. My first idea was to attach a clasp and have a detachable chain to go across the back of the head, but changed this to a piece of black shearing elastic instead , which held in place better. Slightly bend the whole head piece to sit against the forehead.

This shows how the elastic is hidden in the hair once it is pulled over the back of the wig.