I recreated the dress! Ophelia 2018 Teal Costume

 

You might recall that a year ago (plus a little extra time) I had said I was going to make this dress. Well, I finally did. It stretched a lot of skills, and added new ones, and I used a different pattern overall as the base...but it is about 95% finished and I am extremely pleased with how it turned out! 

Hours of work: 40+

Fabric: 7 yards teal crinkle voile cotton, 5 metres of patterned sari silk.

Pattern used: Butterick 4827

Pattern modifications: altered so closure of spiral lacing was in front, added front facing, and remade the sleeves so the seam was on the top. 

I really can't explain all the lunatic steps I had to take to make the gown resemble the one in Ophelia. What I can say is that the bodice area is fully lined in teal cotton, all the seams are finished, and the complete width ("52, I believe) of the cotton voile is used in the side panels. There are only four seams on the outside if the dress, two in front, two in back, but the fitted bodice lining has six in total. 

The sleeves have three parts: 1. A fitted sleeve lining, 2. Cotton voile gathered and sewn to the lining, 3. A strip of silk backed with lining cotton for the sleeve panel, that runs from the top edge of the sleeve to the wrist. The sleeves need a raw edged ribbon added down the edges of that panel, still to come. The dress also needs me to finish stitching down the side volume "pleats", and buy handsewn silk cord for the side lacings. I also need to shorten each length of the silk belt, it is much too long! 

I learned how to sew hand finished eyelets for the spiral lacing and use a tapestry needly to assist lacing when getting into it. I may or may not add some teal raw silk panels to the long, floor length sleeves. The film indicates that there are such panels but I don't really see how they add to the finished dress. I also, like the original designer, made those long draped sleeves removable. It's waaaay easier getting into the dress without them, lol.

Please pardon that in the photos the bust looks odd. The lacings were correctly measured, but I need to find a good garment to wear underneath. Something that lifts up, methinks. I also needed to stitch down those side pleats, hence the funny balloon look. I will fix the issues and next time photos are taken all should be well.

The Choice - Ophelia Waterhouse Gown

And the winner is:

Stylish Fabric with their Teal 52" pleated poly cotton voile, upper left corner. As you can see, the Crushed Taffeta in Teal by Big Z Fabric (upper right) is too blue, and too shiny. The selection by Mood Fabric has a good Accordian Pleated Teal Chiffon, but I feel it is too thin and the pleats too big for Ophelia's dress.

More about the dress, as well. The designer for Ophelia's costumes is Massimo Cantini Parrini, an Italian "Fashion Archaeologist". You can read an article Vogue did about him: Vogue on Ophelia's Costumer.

He was drawn to Waterhouse and other Pre- Raphaelite artist, jewel tones and inspired by the famous Delphos style dresses by Mariano Fortuny. It was so ironic when I read that in the article, I went and dug out one of my MANY costume resource books and thumped it open to the page on the Delphos dress. Here is an example of one such Fortuny Delphos:

These dresses are gorgeous, I recommend checking out another Vogue article on Fortuny: From Invention to Eternity You can see how the pleated underdress and side laced overdress inspired Parrini!

There was one other possibility for my rendition of Ophelia's dress, and that was an Accordian Pleated Teal velvet. I felt this would be too heavy and I was unable to acquire a swatch beforehand. So I guess cotton voile it is!