In 2022 well Preparing for my visit to the Disney Parks and Galaxy's Edge I knew I wanted to Design a piece that would help me immerse myself in the experience of Galaxy's Edge as it was intended to be. Little did I realize that what was supposed to be a Simple wrap dress would teach me so much about fit, sizing and how I view myself and my body.
Concept & Design
When deciding to design this dress I knew I wanted to get back into a sewing mind space after having stepped away for a few months due to my own metal and physical health and how that made me view myself and my self image. Due to major health issues that are still being figured out. I gained about 20 pounds and found none of the previous clothing I designed was fitting me or making me feel good about myself. For a long time I made myself promises that I was going to not make anything until I lost the weight so I would not have to make major adjustments to my blocks or patterns but I realized that it made no sense for me to do something like that my weight will never be consistent neither will my measurements so why keep waiting for something that probably will not happen and keep holding back on these amazing ideas that I do have sitting on notes in my phone or a sketch book at home.
When I finally came to that realization I decided to look though my notes and sketches of the many ideas I have had and I chose to go with the idea of a Jedi Inspired dress in my notes and expanded on the idea and I came up with the following design. The Jedi Dress is a wrap dress with long Kimono style sleeves and a high low skirt hem. But I knew the dress alone wouldn't scream Jedi so I chose to add Tabards similar to the Jedi uniform and an Obi that I envisioned having a lace up back and almost acting like a corset. I saw myself even eventually adding a leather belt and a cloak to make it into a full Jedi like costume if I so pleased.
When it came to my fabric choices for this design I did not have a lot of budget so my first step was to begin shopping in my fabric stash and seeing what I had available to me. I found some really great options with in my linens. one being a beautiful caramel linen like fabric I had acquired for another project and had a significant amount remaining. so I decided on using for the main part of the dress. The second fabric I ended up finding was a chocolate brown linen fabric with in my stash that was never used. So I chose to use this for my tabards and obi fabric.
Construction and Execution
For the main pattern of the dress I ended up using Vogue Pattern V1734 and cutting it out in the biggest size a 24 and taking it in and making all my adjustments as needed from there. After assembling my first mock up of the pattern as is in a size 24 I started by taking the side seams by a total of 6" all the way around the bodice from there I made adjustments on the bust taking in the dart on the front of the bodice more and making the arm hole smaller along with fixing a gapping neckline and minor gapping in the back of the bodice. Once I made all these adjustments I sewed them into my mock up and transferred them onto my pattern. From there I made a second mock up conforming all my fit issues were resolved on the bodice and went on the make the similar side seam adjustments to the skirt of the dress. For the sleeves I found myself making multiple mock ups starting with the two base sleeve patterns from the vogue pattern and seeing what style was easier to sew and looked better I ended up going with the short fitted sleeve option and slashing and spreading it to my desired affect and adding the length I wanted it to have.
Once finishing the mock up I felt finally comfortable enough to move onto the tabards and obi mock up I started off by taking some measurements well the dress was on me that included my measurement from back to front waist seam over my shoulder and the length of the front tabards and back tabards that I desired along with my waist measurements for the obi. Once I finished those measurements I drew up a diagram on how I wanted to construct the pieces and how I wanted them to be patterned out after that I made the pattern to measure on my mock up fabric and tested the pieces making minor adjustments to fit the dress better.
Once all of the mock up's were completed I started the process of cutting this all out of my Main Fabrics. I found the overall process of constructing this dress to be very smooth with my only enemy being time. Well making this dress I had to stop work on the dress for a while due to my previously mentioned medical issues and found myself picking up work on the dress two weeks before my vacation to Galaxy's Edge. Thankfully the lack of time did not hinder my ability to finish this dress completely before leaving and I finished it with five days to spare before leaving on vacation.
Gallery and Closing Statements
I was very greatful for the factor I did multiple mock ups for this dress and getting the bodice to fit just right because I ended up using the pattern for multiple other projects that I will be sharing with you all soon. As for things I would change for this dress if I was ever to remake the dress the first thing is the way the dress way it ties not only was the ties uncomfortable in where they sat on me I found that the front of the bodice was very long in the way it wrapped and I would shorten that on future versions of the dress. The next thing I would change is adding snaps for the tabards onto the dress right at the shoulder seam this way they would sit even and not slide off the shoulder.
With that all being said I am overall very proud of this project and its results not only was it extremely comfortable But extremely fun to wear around the Disney park! I am also proud of the journey I went on with the construction of this dress working on figuring out my sizing and working with my new body instead of against it. I really hope you all enjoyed watching my progress on this dress.
Until Next Time I am Chloe from Chloesfandomlife and you can find me on all of the following social media platforms below
Instagram- @chloesfandomlife
Youtube- @chloesfandomlife
Tiktok- @chloesfandomlife
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