Halloween: Costume 1 - Devil

Okay, Okay, so its not going to be a great tutorial because I was just altering a dress and I bought the accessories, but here are the photos from the different stages of making my costume.

The story behind this dress, by the way, is that it is 8 years old. Yes, thats right, I wore it to a school disco in Year 8.  It was short then, and it is even shorter now, but its saving grace, and the selling point that convinced my mum to buy it for me, was that it had attached knickers and was made of stretchy fabric so it was basically a skating dress - which was okay because I did figure skating at the time. Anyway, I could never bring myself to throw it out or donate it because, well I've pretty much stayed the same shape, just scaled up, since Year 8 and I can still fit in it.  For ages it was by far the raciest thing in my wardrobe but now, compared to what some girls wear out, it looks tame and the style is somewhat dated, hence why I decided to give it a re-style!

This is what the dress looked like to begin with, minus a large sparkly diamante buckle that was attached to the ruched "belt". My first step was to remove that, as it dated the style the most. 

I then unpicked the skirt and took out the attached knickers:

It was worrying trying it on at this stage because it really was just a top!

I then re-attached the skirt after trying it on and pulling the skirt fabric taught to make it a pencil style skirt so that it hugs the body. The problem then was that it gaped away from my bum at the back - not a flattering look! I think it was because when it had the knickers in it, they pulled the body down, like a leotard or a body, but when I took them out there was nothing to keep the material in tension.  Hence my next idea...

My last step was to case some wide elastic in the red fabric and attach that to the back of the skirt at the hem so that it pulled the fabric under the bum and held securely.  I also made a casing the same size for the front and used that to hem the skirt.

It looks a bit funny shaped here because of the elastic, it flattens out when worn.

And because it is still a short dress, I'm not going to put up a photo of me in it without being a full costume, but here's an artists (my) interpretation...

So all I need to do now is put it on with my newly bought (yes, yes I know, I should have made them but I had no time!) devils horns and a trident and I'm all set!

Next up: Halloween: Costume 2 - Plastic Surgery Reject...