The video finally arrived from ADA Providence! I wish this was in High Def but competition videos tend to be shot in an older format so they’ll play on virtually any DVD player. From start to finish it took me about six weeks to make all 56 costumes. The inspiration was a Salwar Kameez for the girls and Kurta for the guys, both are South Asian styles worn in that part of the world by millions of people every day. To get started with this project I had a meeting in January with Rennie Gold and Kellie Grant to get a sense of what they were thinking for a costume. Rennie is the director and owner of The Gold School and Kellie is on the faculty. Rennie choreographed “Bollywood Jam”. He had a thick catalog of dance costumes and while there were a few South Asian styles available they were interpretations of formal clothes such as Nehru jackets or were variants on sari, such as a choli (the blouse worn under a sari) paired with loose pants. All of these were out because two years ago another dance school did a big Bollywood production routine that used those types of clothing styles. Plus, the Level 3 dancers are under the age of 13 and, unlike many other dance schools, Rennie will not allow young girls to wear costumes that are not age appropriate. Plus the colors weren’t really what he was looking for either. He used my Pantone deck to chose a color palette and I did web research to come up with ideas.
Rennie’s final choice was a turquoise blue for Level 1 (the oldest kids, age 13 and up), a lime green for Level 2 (ages 11 – 13) and a bright yellow for Level 3 (ages 8 – 13). He left the color choice for the pants up to me and that was an interesting challenge. It had to be dark color because all of the dancers wear the same tap shoe: black leather Capezio G100′s that cost $65 a pair. Asking them to buy new tap shoes for one routine was out of the question. The pants color also had to coordinate with the three tunic colors. Lucky for me research revealed that a dark merlot wine color is used in real South Asian clothing and it looked great with the tunic colors.
Design Sources
The Girls: Salwar Kameez is a garment for women and girls made from woven fabrics; the basic design is a loose tunic with side slits, a pair of tapered pants fairly tight through the leg that scrunch at the ankle plus a scarf or shawl in a chiffon. The scarf and pants are often the same color and contrast with the tunic. It can be a day or evening garment depending on the fabric. Even though the design is simple the fabrics range from plain woven gauze to sari-type fabrics in bright saturated colors with beautiful metallic designs woven through and embellished with elaborate trim. The tunic can be sleeveless, short sleeved or long sleeved and a v-neck is most common.
The Guys: a Kurta is a tunic worn by men and boys, very loose, and the only embellishment is at the neckline. It’s also made from a woven fabric and the pants can be matching or not.
Fabric: This was an even bigger challenge! My first choice was sari fabric for the tunics and a knit for the pants. Sari is widely available on Ebay in poly-cotton and I found a source that had the three colors I needed. Each sari had a stunning jacquard clover motif woven through with a silver jacquard border. One sari is 7 yards long and I found a source for about $15 per sari and I could get several tunics out of each one with a cross grain layout. I ordered one to make a prototype, however, the fabric was really really sheer and it needed a lining, which was totally out of the question for 56 costumes. So I had to go with a knit for the tunics as well and Spandex House came ot rescue; they sell Milliskin which is a 4-way stretch knit (80% nylon, 20% Spandex) and it comes in 40 colors. It’s meant for dance/gymnastic costumes and work-out clothing. Spandex House has the matte finish version which was perfect. Several of the girls told me they found the leggings to be really comfortable, I think that’s due to te high Spandex count. It’s a rather heavy drapey fabric like Slinky but thankfully it doesn’t “grow” like Slinky. A raw edge on Milliskin will not run or ravel and not having to hem sleeves and pant legs was a real time saver.
Trim: the move away from sari fabric to a plain knit meant I had to look for trim and it had to be at a great price. Trim is always more expensive than fabric and my price limit was $75 per costume. Ideally I wanted to find a trim in three different colors – lo and behold Cheep Trims had metallic fan braid in yellow gold, light gold and silver at a great price point: 20 yards for $12 and I easily met the minimum order requirements.
This was the silouette we wanted
Patterns: Initially, New Look 6086 was exactly what I was looking for in terms of a Salwar style tunic. A short sleeve was perfect because I didn’t want to worry about sleeve length. The scarf was eliminated because there is partnering in this routine. However, once I switched to a knit for the tops I wanted to look for a simpler design without darts to cut down on construction time. Jalie 2805 (the t-shirt pattern) was the final choice and I lengthened each pattern into a short tunic shape with side slits. The end result is much more body conscious than a real Salwar and more appropriate for a dance routine. In tap routines the judges need to see every dancers legs and feet for scoring. Jalie 2920 was used for the leggings and I extended the length by 6 inches to get the ankle scrunch. The guys costumes use Simplicity 9900, a pajama pattern. A few minor adjustments were made; a v-neck was added and and the Henley front and center seamwas eliminated. Oddly the younger boys costumes fit them perfectly but the older guys costumes were HUGE even though I made them in the correct sizes. After the try-on each one had to be cut in two inches on each side for both the pants and the tunic. Now these guys are dancers and all in amazing condition nonetheless the sloper on this pattner is so huge I recommend going down a size for any guy if you decide to use it.
Production
Production sewing was the biggest challenge. There are three sets of dancers in this routine, both guys and girls,a nd the age range is from age 9 to 18. In the end it worked out to 56 costumes in 12 sizes across four colors. Yes – I made 112 pieces of clothing! The school gave me basic measurements for the girls (bust, waist, hips) and I took measurements for the 7 older guys (chest, waist, back length, waist to floor from the side). I winged it on the younger boys because they are all about the same height & size this year and a boys medium worked for the three of them. In the end I traced off and altered patterns in 12 sizes forhte girls and 3 sizes for the guys. That was a ton of work but I have them saved so I can use them again.
The costumes had to be delivered a full week before the first competition so Rennie could do rehearsals and a run through prior to the competition. My biggest fear was handing them out and discovering that one (or more!) dancers would not have a costume when they needed to wear them that weekend. I came up with this production plan to prevent that:
Each dancers name, gender, measurements, size for each piece and dance level was put on a 3 x 5 index card
The girls costumes were made first, then the guys.
I sorted the cards and made a separate list on a legal pad of how many pieces were needed of each size in each color. For cutting the list was grouped by size, costume color then by dance level. Bodices were cut first, then sleeves.
all of the pieces for each garment were rolled together and placed in a wire laundry basket to the right of my serger. As I finished each garment I dropped each one into another laundry bsaket to my left.
Trim was added after all the costumes were made.
As each piece was made it was checked off from the totals for that size and each piece was marked with its size on a piece of tape.
When a color was finished in a size I added the dancers names to the tapes, put each into a ziplock bag and dropped in the 3×5 index card with the name facing out.
The pants/leggings were sewn and added to each bag in the same manner..
After all the costumes were done I did a double check against the master list of names to make sure each dancer had a costume. On costume day I did not miss ANYONE!
There were a few glitches during production,the electronics in my serger overloaded and I had to enlist Ann’s help and her industrial serger to finish them up. She gets a big THANK YOU and a giant hug for being such a solid and supportive friend. There have also been repairs here and there. A few kids went through a growth spurt and their costumes were too small based on measurements taken last fall. Some have been accidentally washed, but hat’s no big deal as I have extra fabric (never wash a dance costume!) For Nationals next month I’ll whip up spare leggings in a few sizes because if somethigbn needs repair there will be no time for fixing anything while we’re in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center. One final touch for the girls will be bindi and jewels over their eyebrows.
All in all it was a fun challenge and I got paid for it too!
As soon as I can figure out how to do that in WordPress! The pattern will be only $.99 and this headwrap makes a nice gift, especially when dressed up with a monogram. The next time my daughters have a sleepover birthday party I think we’ll do some as party favors.
This headwrap is a few years old; it has been washed and used many many times so it looks a bit longer in the flat photo compared to the pattern. This is the type of project that can be whipped up in a hour or less and it can be made on a serger or a regular machine. It’s been a bit of a challenge to get it printed out in the same scale as the original so I need to fiddle with that a bit more before I make it a download.
Got both dresses done in time ………..WOOT! Abby is rockin’ the 80′s no? When she saw this pattern in the McCall’s catalog she wanted it exactly as they showed it. The shoulder pads have mesh-covered jewels from M&J Trimming. There two shapes, a 25 mm round and 8×24 mm baguette. The baguettes posed a problem because the mesh is bunched up inside the setting and I could not get a needle through it to sew them on. Bridal glue came to the rescue. My baby knows how to shop: she found a pair of Adrienne Vitadinni silk satin shoes for $30 at DSW! The fashion fabric is a purple silk charmeuse, the lining is black silk habotai, both from Thai silks. Now that I have a dress pattern fitted to her I can make her this style as a Little Black Dress for orchestra (she plays viola.) Em is wearing a different dress than what she will have for Nationals in July. When I injured my shoulder last month I realized there was no way I’d get a spiral steel boned corselet and dress made in time for tonight. Em was very good about the news and found an inexpensive RTW dress at TJ Maxx that I altered by taking off the bra top and adding Rigilene boning to give her support. There was zero boning in this strapless dress and there was no way my daughter was going to be hiking up her dress all night like all the other girls in of Thurston Middle School in RTW. There was an interlining layer in the front bodice due to the molded bra cups so I able to fiddle a casing for the Rigilene. The back of this dress had no interlining and there I just took in the side seams about an inch on each side to make it super tight across her back and we used Hollywood Tape to keep it up.
I have two teenage daughters and I’m often asked if they have any interest in sewing. Up until now the answer has always been no and this didn’t bother me too much; they have their own lives to live. It’s more important to John and me that they be passionate about something and both of them are incredible dancers and musicians. Plus, when your Mom has the skills to make everything from 56 dances costumes to a wedding gown why bother to learn yourself? I don’t make them day clothes anymore because they like to shop, but of course I was been pressed into service to make them dresses for a summer’s worth of events (8th Grade Semi-Formal, American Dances Award Nationals Awards, sundry Bar-and-Bat Mitzvahs. Even in college I did not have such a social life)
Their dress choices are in this blog post. Whipping them up was no problem at all until I pinched a nerve in my C7 cervical vertebrae during the week of Friday the 13th – HAH – and lost two weeks of sewing time due to the pain. They both found alternate dresses for a friend’s Bat Mitzvah but they really wanted something special for Semi and ADA. Abby gamely asked if she could make her own dress and of course I said yes. I guess the moral of the story is that even if your children don’t seem to have any interest in sewing right now, you never know when they might decide to give it a try.
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Abby did most of the work on her muslin; we used Susan Khalje’s machine tread trace method and I think this was a good way for her to understand sewing basics. I was out of muslin and the fabric is silk dupioni left over from her Aunt Patty’s wedding gown. She did all of the cutting, marking. sewing and she installed the zipper. The muslin fits her perfectly; the only adjustments were to shorten the back waist (a trait she shares with me) and there is a tuck to shorten the back length where it gaps at the armsyce.
McCall’s 6201 comes with A-B-C-D bust adjustments built in, which I loved because she needs an FBA but I never do and I’ve never done one. Saved a lot of time there. The instructions include directions for determining the cup size; basically you do that first and then decide what size to cut based on the cup size. The pattern includes full size front pattern pieces for all cup sizes; the back pattern piece is standard for all cup sizes. Abby is a size 6 C cup in this pattern. This pattern is well drafted and is a great basic cocktail dress. A couple of sleeve variations are included.
The fabric for both dresses was ordered this weekend from Thai Silks and she enjoyed making her muslin enough to work on the real dress. I’m thrilled that she is sewing and I’ll be blogging about her progress!
This Kenar dress is a few years old and I wear it quite a bit, its the type of dress than can be dressed up or down with different belts, boots, shoes etc. Hot Patterns Urbanista Coat Dress is very similar. One thing that has always annoyed me though is the belt that came with it can’t be tied in a classic trench coat square knot. The buckle doesn’t have a prong either so it doesn’t really stay snug when I wear it like a regular belt. So I decided to take the belt apart and use some lining fabric as a new backing. Here are the two pieces taken apart. The two pieces were stitched together a center back and the new strip was more than long enough for a new belt. One end of the strip was resquared and the other was re-trued into a point and a new lining attached.
For sewers with teenage daughters, Spring always means “Mom, can you make me a dress for the (insert: dance, semi-formal, prom)?”…when my daughters were young I did a lot of sewing for them, but now that they’re older they like shopping and that’s fine, it means I can sew for myself. However, when prom season rolls around they know Mom can make them something much nicer than anything they could buy in a store for the same cost. So between now and the end of June I have two dresses to make for the Thurston Middle School 8th Grade Semi-Formal. Here’s what they chose:
Emma – McCall’s 6283
A couple months ago Emma gave me a tearsheet from Seventeen for this $296 Terani mermaid gown. She wants a cocktail dress version, basically the whole look without the mermaid hem. McCall’s 6283 is a perfect pattern and is virtually identical to the original. This style is in McCall’s “Create it!” series and the instructions include a croquis so that budding designers can style their own dress. I love that idea and I’ll hold onto this pattern. Em wants the fashion fabric to be a textured Thai Silks silk/linen blend with 1 inch black silk satin ribbon for embellishment. Construction on this will use tried -nd-true couture technique. I’ll make a boned corselet and the dress will attach to the corselet on the top of the bodice. Susan Kahlje’s website has steel boning and there a several web sources for genuine silk satin ribbon. The biggest challenge is all of those buttonholes for the ribbon, I need to think more about how I’ll make them. I think an oaktag template for marking and a whisper light machine embroidery stabilizer under the fabric might be the way to go. I might even make the buttonholes first onto blocks of fabric and then cut out the pattern pieces.
Abigail – McCall’s 6201
Abby’s dress is not as complex, a few months ago she saw McCall’s 6201 and loved it exactly as it appeared in the catalog. She wants View C in the same blue-purple fabric as the original. An FBA is built in this pattern and I’ll need that for Abby. A silk charmeuse should work well here; the shoulder embellishment will be mesh-covered jewels in a couple different shapes from M&J Trimming. No boning needed on this dress, most of the work here will be in making the shoulder pads and embellishments. The jewels are sew-on and I think the shoulder pads will need to be slightly formed and lightly padded, maybe wool felt steamed into shape . I don’t want the stitches that attach the jewels to pucker the underlying fashion fabric.
I’ll do muslins for both dresses although there should not be much fitting to do, both girls dance 15+hours week and they’re in perfect shape.
John, I have admired your astounding work for many years and I just need to give you some sincere advice. I’ve worked in the corporate world for for a long time and have witnessed all kinds of corporate intrigue and you made a few crucial mistakes:
Develop a relationship with your CEO. I read in news reports that Mr. Toledano said that he had no personal relationship with you and he communicated with you through staff. This is career suicide for someone at your level because even the lowliest worker needs allies in business.
Every cell phone has a camera and people are always on the look out for ways to compromise celebrities. You may not be Oprah Winfrey in terms of face recognition but obviously more people know who you are than you might think.
Remember that the people who really make it all happen in couture are the seamstresses and tailors – the people onstage in the photo. Karl Lagerfeld understands this, just watch “Signe Chanel”
Please don’t turn out like Yves St. Laurent, who lost the last half of his career to various demons and substance abuse issues. The last two collections you did for Dior is some of your finest work and I hope that you solve your problems and come back stronger than ever. The world needs the beauty you create; we don’t need hate speech, there is plenty of that in the world already. Coco Chanel spent a decade in exile and I hope that doesn’t happen to you.
Sometimes it’s just about getting the job done and these days I’m in dance costume mode. This jacket and dress is for a solo (not one of my daughters) and the routine is jazzy and edgy. The challenge in coming up with a costume to was to avoid cliche, especially a peculiar erstaz-Fosse type of costume that I just see over and over and over at Nationals (lots of black, bowler hats, fingerless gloves – ho hum.) So this costume is meant to be fresh, urban and youthful. The jacket pattern is Kwik Sew 3764 and the dress is Jalie 2674. I’ve already turned over the dress to the dancer so you’re looking at some extra fabric pinned to my dress form. The only change I made was leaving the straps off; she’ll wear a set of clear straps to make the dress look strapless. The jacket was an interesting challenge because it had to be as sheer as possible and several details were left off, such as the epaulets and the zippered pockets. The seams and edge finish are a three thread narrow overlock; and the heavy stress seams (e.g. armsyce, shoulder, side seams) were done on my industrial and the serger was used to clean finish the seams. The zipper was a challenge and there I just laid the zipper under the overlocked edge. The jacket fabric is dark blue silk organza and the dress is a spangly sequin knit.
The past month has been a blur of holidays, work, snow, pattern uploading, school, dance, snow, work, school, seed catalogs, snow and more snow. I’m not one of those people who bitch about winter though and this lovely blanket of white is good news for spring and summer gardening. I also have my Etsy shop CoudreMODE Vintage Patterns up and running and I’m adding patterns about once a week. Today I finished part of Abby’s costume for her solo, she’s doing a contemporary routine to a White Stripes tune and her choreographer wanted something rocker but happy. New Look 6648 had the perfect style; this is a very simple pattern with a nice gathered waist. The kimono sleeves are done on a straight stitch machine not a serger, a trick I learned from Gigi and this really gives the sleeve a nice drape. There are no changes from the pattern other than folding the neckline down with a coverstitch. No armsyce seam meant it was perfect for this big Gerbera daisy print from Gorgeous Fabrics. This style really perfect for a poly knits with a large scale patterns. The flower centers have a bit of gold foil color and I added Swarovski 12ss hot-fix crystals in Light Topaz for understated bling. Those came from Crystal Rhinestone Boutique on Ebay (great prices and every size and color.) The rest of her costume? A pair of dark wash RTW jeggings. The other 56 costumes are a silver sequin mini dress under a sheer motorcyle jacket in dark blue organza and 55 costumes for a Bollywood tap routine. Tomorrow I start the production sheets for those!
He left the color choice for the pants up to me and that was an interesting challenge. It had to be dark color because all of the dancers wear the same tap shoe: black leather Capezio G100′s that cost $65 a pair. Asking them to buy new tap shoes for one routine was out of the question. The pants color also had to coordinate with the three tunic colors. Lucky for me research revealed that a dark merlot wine color is used in real South Asian clothing and it looked great with the tunic colors.
The Girls: Salwar Kameez is a garment for women and girls made from woven fabrics; the basic design is a loose tunic with side slits, a pair of tapered pants fairly tight through the leg that scrunch at the ankle plus a scarf or shawl in a chiffon. The scarf and pants are often the same color and contrast with the tunic. It can be a day or evening garment depending on the fabric. Even though the design is simple the fabrics range from plain woven gauze to sari-type fabrics in bright saturated colors with beautiful metallic designs woven through and embellished with elaborate trim. The tunic can be sleeveless, short sleeved or long sleeved and a v-neck is most common.
Production sewing was the biggest challenge. There are three sets of dancers in this routine, both guys and girls,a nd the age range is from age 9 to 18. In the end it worked out to 56 costumes in 12 sizes across four colors. Yes – I made 112 pieces of clothing! The school gave me basic measurements for the girls (bust, waist, hips) and I took measurements for the 7 older guys (chest, waist, back length, waist to floor from the side). I winged it on the younger boys because they are all about the same height & size this year and a boys medium worked for the three of them. In the end I traced off and altered patterns in 12 sizes forhte girls and 3 sizes for the guys. That was a ton of work but I have them saved so I can use them again.
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