Prince Caspian: Susan's Farewell Dress

So, I love sewing things. Mostly costumes. I tend to sew a lot in my spare time. And sometimes I only need the mearest suggestion that someone wants something unique for me to start rummaging through my pattern collection, my fabric stash, or popping out to the fabric store, "just for one thing". So when a friend of mine went and saw Prince Caspian and absolutely fell in love with Susan's farewell dress, I started pondering how their costumer made the thing...

http://thecostumer.today.com/2009/01/18/narnia-costumes-at-the-wardrobe-door/

Ok, I like a challenge.

It looks like and underdress and overdress arrangement. Of course many people on the various costume forums have been looking for pictures of it from all angles, trying to figure out patterns to use, sources for fabric, trims, etc. So if you look around, there's a lot of interesting information and suggestions out there. It doesn't seem to be all in one place, though. So I figured if I was going to make this thing, I'd take pictures and copious notes and put them all in one spot. I don't know if this is how the original costumers did it, and obviously others will have their own opinions and preferences, and that's fine. This is just my own interpretation for my own enjoyment. So, here goes...

The Underdress
Whenever you start making a costume, you start from the inside out. So, the underdress has to be made first. The underdress has distinctive sleeves, fitted from the shoulder to elbow, and then poofed out from there to gather again into a cuff. There is a distinctive "wing" that sits just above the sleeve, which seems to be folded out of the neck binding. The neckline is off-the-shoulder, not revealing too much cleavage, if any. The closure of the underdress cannot be clearly identified, as it is underneath the overdress. The skirt looks very full, and is floor length. The underdress sports two lines of trim at the upper arm, elbow and cuff. The trim is a medium brown with what looks like lighter brown contrast stitching or beading. The whole of the dress is an off-white or ivory color. The fabric has some body and a little stiffness to it; the poofy part of the sleeves does not collapse totally under its own weight.

I decided to use McCalls pattern #4490, view A, with modifications. With this pattern I could draw in a new neckline without crossing over the seams of the armsceye. The drop-shoulder sleeves leave a seamline at the upper arm that is the perfect placement line for trim. The fitted sleeves can be chopped off above the elbow to put on the lower, poofy part of the sleeve. The princess lines leave little bulk in the torso area to build up under the overdress. Also, the fullness of the skirt should negate the necessity for a whopping great petticoat (perhaps only a long slip will be needed to keep it from bunching between the legs). While view C/D of the same pattern shows a very open neckline, I rejected this because it is not off the shoulder, and if pulled that way would create unsightly wrinkles near the underarms, and would tend to want to creep back up anyway if the weight of the sleeves did not pull it inexorably down.

I got my fabric from WalMart. Yes, we still have one that carries fabric. I got Cotton Percale, 4.5 yards of 90" wide. The whole piece cost $21.02. I would do silk taffeta if I could get my hands on it for $5/yard or less, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. They had bright white cotton instead of ivory, but you can't argue with the price. I also got a $.99 package of lightweight fusible interfacing and a half-yard remnant of silk from Hancock fabric for $5 to make the trim.

Construction of the underdress went pretty much as described in the packaged instructions, omitting references to the neck gathering and binding, since I knew I would cut that off anyway. I worked the eyelets on my sewing machine so they would be soft (or, softer than metal eyelets). As I cut the pieces out I finished the edges on my serger. This ensures I can wash it without fear of ravelling, and I only have to sew it with one line of stitching, so I can alter it easily if I have to. I left it unhemmed for the time being.

Not bad as an underdress, but by itself looks a bit like a cult dress...

Back view...
After I got that together, I slipped it on and got out my water-erasable pen. I marked it in the back a little above where my bra came up, and I marked a not-too-revealing neckline position in the front, as well as the proper point for an off-the-shoulder neckline at the sides. This ended up being 3.5 inches down from the original neckline at center front, 2.5 inches down at the shoulder, and 7 inches down from the original center back. After drawing a nice, symmetrical line, I cut off the excess.

To get the wing around the neckline, I cut a very long strip of bias cut fabric 6.25 inches wide, folded it double, and basted it to the neckline. I then gather-stitched through all the layers, pulled it up a few inches and distributed the fullness mostly to the center front and center back. I thought once the dress was on a person, the fullness would naturally curve and fold, making it look like the wing was floating. I then bound the neck edge using a 2 inch strip of bias cut fabric. When I tried it on again, though, the wing didn't float, and didn't quite look like the picture. So, I took it to my iron and fooled with it a bit. I figured out that if you fold the wing back up on itself from a point about .75 inches from the bound edge and then repress the bottom, you get that floating effect. I would suggest doing this to the fabric before you sew it onto the neckline, possibly gathering the wing by itself and heat-shrinking in some of the fullness along the edge.

Pinning the wing in place.

The wing sewn on, with the binding done. Doesn't quite look right.



Here I've folded and pressed the wing so it "floats" above the arm.

Compared to this, the sleeves were a piece of cake. I again slipped on the dress and marked the sleeve just above my elbow (above the inside crease of my arm). I then cut it off with a seam allowance, which turn out to be 5.75 inches below the drop-shoulder seam, when it is sewn.
You can just see the pencil mark in this shot...

For the puffed portion, I cut pieces of fabric14.25 inches long by 30 inches wide. I seamed them to about 3 inches before the cuff end, gathered both ends, attached a cuff and attached the other end to the original fitted sleeve. For each cuff I cut a piece of cloth 5.25 inches long and 10.75 inches wide. I interfaced it lightly, folded it in half, sewed the ends, sewed it to the bottom of the sleeve and put in a buttonhole, just like a regular shirt cuff.

For the trim, I took my little piece of silk and dyed it in a pot. The silk started out an ivory color, and when I was fininshed it came out a honey-wheat color. I had hoped I would get a darker color (it looked about as dark as the original publicity photo when I took it out of the pot), but I liked the color, so I left it as is.

this is the final color.

I cut it in bias strips 1.5 inches wide, folded and pressed in the 3/8 inch seam allowances, and stitched them into the appropriate spots with a simple running stitch. I had double-threaded the needle with two strands of brown silk.
All in all, this wasn't too hard in terms of construction. I think this took 25 hours to complete, mostly because I made the trim myself and applied it by hand. The only part I was not completely satisfied with was the wing at the top, mostly because I hadn't figured it out beforehand. Overall, though, it looks pretty good, and is good-looking by itself.

Here's a pic of it (sorry, without trim)

And with trim...