Steam and Sewing

When you start doing a lot of Burlesque you find that you usually have a costume/outfit or at least enough random pieces to throw something together for a party/club night/costume event. This Sunday is the 'Lust in Space, Fetish Fashion Show' and I decided last week that I since I am unemployed I was actually going to sit down and make myself a new outfit, not for a number but just to wear out and dance in.

So after some consideration about what kind of space person I wanted to be (last year I did Leeloo from 'the 5th Element') and a lot of links and babbling to a friend of mine I decided to do a sort of steam-punk look. My main inspiration was this girl, Kato, who was brought to my attention by a friend of mine (Hear that Graham? I blame you!) as well as some tribal bellydance looks that I saw at the event I helped host for my mother.

The basic idea was to do a tomboyish type of aviator chick so that I would be a good contrast to Mama's neo-Nazi Lady Gaga costume. We kept joking that if we were in a show together she would be the evil empire and I would be one of the rebels, which I think is a good little comparison.


The first thing I did was make a little skirt/bustle, which was pretty simple actually.

 I cut my fabric in a long line, long enough to wrap around me almost twice. Then I hemmed it and sewed the top over about an inch so I could thread the elastic band through.

 Next up I added some nice cream lace to the bottom.

I then shoved the elastic through the folded bits using a safety pin on the end to help anchor and pull it through, because the elastic is shorter than the length of the fabric you get the nice ruffled gathers.

Ta-daaa! I now have a cute little ruffle bum skirt/bustle type thing.

Next up was the striped pants that I've been wanting to try for a while, I did a test pattern before I used my real striped fabric (the test pair of pants are the red tights you see in the photo above) because I didn't want to waste any of my good fabric. To get the actual pattern I just ripped up a pair of old blue cotton tights that I had and slapped them down on my fabric.

Like so!

I then cut around the pattern leaving generous amounts of 'fuck up room', especially at the top and bottom because those are spots I always seem to mess up.

I sewed the crotch and ass of the pants first because when I did the test red pair I found I made them slightly off centre and while it still works it didn't look as good. Then I sewed the legs up and added the elastic waist band.

The finished result! I like the high waist of them because then I don't have to worry about them sagging and showing my ass crack while I'm dancing.

Pants, skirt and boots! The only thing I sort of fucked up was the back lower legs, for some reason they got kind of twisty when they were supposed to run straight down....Grrrr. Oh well! Not bad for my first real attempt working with stripes.

I then hot glued up some accessories to stick in my hair, still don't know which I'll go with for tomorrow night. Either the top hat (which was made for me minus the lace by the lovely Melody Mangler) or the neat goggle clock but I think it will depend on how my hair goes.
So there you have it, my first little trip into the world of steam-punk fashion stuff, I will post pictures from the actual night so you can see the finished result which will hopefully look as good as I think it will.
Cheers!

-Voodoo