Project Registration: Romanov-Inspired Hime

[lafarat]

Comments

[kangaekaeru]

That's going to be gorgeous! Are you making a muslin first?

I know you're shirring the back, but to get that gorgeous structured look, are you stiffening your fabric in any way? Or is structure not the point of this one? :D

Something that may be helpful: Truly Victorian's Vest Basque pattern. I made one at the end of last year and dear heavens do I love it. (actually I want to make like four more, in various colors, and wear them everywhere... now to get more shirts that look appropriate under that neckline.)

It's not terribly expensive, and has a very similar shape to its bodice - a little more hourglassy perhaps, but that's not very difficult to modify. It also has instructions for boning, and while it's not an -easy- pattern, it is a -simple- one. If you used something similar for your bodice and swapped the skirt and sleeves, it might take some of the worst guesswork out of it.

[lafarat]

I was considering interfacing with pretty stiff stuff, maybe a really thick cotton or coutil. I just forgot to add that because I haven't bought the stuff yet. Boning can only go so far, and I really want that nice, smooth shape. Structure is needed, because by the time I do get around to wearing it, I'll have lost quite a bit of weight, so said dress is going to have to do double-duty to iron out any last lumps that my shaper can't.

[xianghua]

Definitely, definitely interface it then, in addition to a liner. I think the boning is probably optional if you use quite stiff interfacing (and it honestly wouldn't be that hard to leave channels along the front to add if you weren't sure- I wouldn't bother with lightweight boning, I'd go straight to the good steel stuff :D But I am fairly new to Lolita sewing, my background is all Elizabethan and Victorian so I am prone....)

[lafarat]

The double-edged sword of very early 20th century Russian court dress is that it was a fashion time-warp. Once the court sank its teeth into an aspect of something it thought was popular in the West, it held onto it forever after, including fashion trends that died out 200-300 years prior. An Elizabethan background would probably help quite a bit!

[xianghua]

Yup! Although the stuff that I suspect this is inspired by is later than that- it reminds me more of 17th c stuff?

The way *I* would do it just on pure aesthetics as a costumer vs Lolita seamstress would be to make basically a robe a l'anglaise with a funny skirt, but while it'd be fairly easy to modify that for the lolita silhouette, it's not really the same structurally as the typical OP or JSK. Still, looking at 17th c costuming might give you some good ideas for ways to structure that bodice more than your typical lolita look, which if you're wanting it to o some smoothing might nt be a bad thing.

I keep thinking it'd be fun to do a Lolita robe polonaise......

[lafarat]

I've seen a lolita-tized robe polonaise here, on Sew_loli! Go looking through the tags. Some of the stuff there is AMAZING.

[kangaekaeru]

That's a very good idea. On my vest basque, I ended up underlining the fashion fabric (which was a fairly heavy cotton jacquard) with gabardine. It's luxuriously heavy, very warm, and seems to have inherited the lovely drape from the gabardine without getting overly stiff.

I don't know that the "very warm" will be as important at SakuraCon, but underlining makes a HUGE difference.

For what it's worth, I didn't bone mine, and it didn't seem to affect the garment in a negative way at all.

[lafarat]

Sakura-con is in downtown Seattle, so having extra warmth would be appreciated. I'll keep that in mind!