Wearables "Elie Saab Black Dress fall 2016" project (Ingrid, Fairyland) - finished! /Jan 9

I got feeple65 Ingrid fullset back in 2020 and predictably, I got a bit bored with her default look and decided to make her something different. I am still in love with her hat and gloves, so I wanted to make something that will allow her to still wear them.

I looked through a lot of fashion pieces for inspiration and found a perfect dress for what I was looking for in Elie Saab 2016/17 fall Haute Couture collection - it was this elegant black velvet dress you can see on vogue site:

Elie Saab Fall 2016 Couture Fashion Show

So the project became an actual recreation of the dress in the bjd size.
I already bought her the shoes for it ( just strappy black heels because I did not like the ones from the runway) and got two light pink wigs (one with a stylised wave and one loose to wear under the hat)
I will be following the original dress pretty closely, but some changes will happen - there are not many photos of this particular dress on the net, so a lot of construction and embroidery will have to be improvised a bit. I will also change the colours - mainly black-white-pewter-silver, but will add slight variations of pink to mirror the hair.

Not sure yet how to go about the necklace... I might need to try getting it custom made. [edit: custom necklace suddenly is out of the question, will need to make my own]
Did a little board with the dress plan (this is just a photoshopped dress pic from the runway with Ingrid's face and wig):

link to the image if not loading

At the moment, what I have is some fabrics (velvet and satin for the dress), some beads and tiny feathers, and I started working on the pattern draft. I'll use the below plan to mark the project progress. I am not a super experienced tailor, so it will take me some time to finish all this, but I'm really excited about this project.

DRESS - JACKET
[x] Pattern draft
[x] Cut & sew pieces
[x] Fastenings
[x] Make belt

DRESS - SKIRT
[x] Pattern draft (also for lining)
[x] Cust & sew pieces
[x] Fastenings (clasps)

DECORATIONS
[x] Bracelet charms make and add to gloves (temporary attachment? charms sewn-on lace bracelets?)
[x] Embroidery shapes draft
[x] Back embroidery
[x] Hip embroidery
[x] Shoulder embroidery
[x] finish up & attach the embroidery to dress

NECKLACE
[x] materials (clay, crystals, fastening)
[x] clay base
[x] bedazzling

 

@Cloudedmind thank you - I think I've seen some chanel and valentino reproductions, but sadly there are not a lot of those out there. Partially its probably due to the patterns being not always easy to guess or finding the right materials... There are a lot of high fashion dresses I would love for my dolls to have but would be simply way too difficult to make... Hope you manage to find or make some too!

@Moonycat31 thank you - there were so many great ones in this collection alone it was difficult to choose!

@Kimmera thank you - yeah, I love his style... I plan on doing a little bit of work at least every weekend, so unless I would be waiting for any materials or got stuck on technical issue I hope to make regular updates (famous last words probably)

 

A little update from fun drafting time this weekend... I could not find any suitable BJD patterns matching the concept, and none of the human patterns will work with Feeple65 gigantic chest, so in the end had to draft the pattern myself after measuring the doll in many, many places. I used cheap muslin fabric for mockup to see what works and what I need to change...


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The parts that were fairly just following the body lines - skirt and the back - turned out well. The sleeves I'm almost happy too, but I want to try adding a bit more bulk to the shoulder. Not too much more, though, as velvet will bunch our more already on the final jacket because it is thicker than thin muslin.

The front part of the jacket might be a problem - because of the quite big dart on the side I did not know exactly what shape the plunge would get - I can see now I need to straighten the top part, and add a bit more space where it peaks on the chest, to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions...

So back to the drawing and the next step will be to do another front piece, hopefully working better this time, and draft the peplum part.

 

Oooh thank you! Suggestions are always welcome, and this is a very interesting one. I think I know what you mean by additional dart on the opposite side from the side one - I pinched the fabric a little from the opening side on the chest as if for a dart, and it definitely helped eliminate the gaping at the bust. I'll try doing such version next, probably will need to make that piece in velvet too, just to see how visible the additional dart would be...

 

Thank you - very good point regarding the thickness. Honestly, I think I will just get some cheap velour for mockup to see how well the pieces will actually work

Thank you! With dolls you also add the fact that their bust is not squishable... the other option I've seen with deep v necks I might try is the diagonal dart, going from the side waist up to apex, but I'll see how the two darts will look first

I don't think I would ever have the courage to sew anything for DD-Dynamite that is not from super stretchy fabric...

 

Thank you, @chrystal

If I couldn't figure out the shape, I would probably use in the end the way when you put the masking tape over the body and mark seams on it directly, but I wanted to try working this out with just measurements.


Meanwhile, the trial with the addition of a bust dart didn't work well, the velvet kinda bunched in the space between the darts, so went back to one dart, but I made it a French dart, and I think it works much better on this type of fabric. I made the top in white velvet to see the seams - I only stitched the pieces so once actually sewn properly and with fastening instead of a pin in front the seams will be neater.



The sleeve on the right has more volume at the top, and I quite like it, but the fabric is quite thick, which makes the arms thicker too, so I will need to make them narrower.


link to the pic


So for the pattern next steps will be:

• making sleeve narrower
• practice sewing the french dart to minimize the puckering at the end of it
• start on designing the peplum part

 

Finally an update with the jacket pattern draft complete! I could not find any good base pattern for the peplum, so I had to make my own. I started with a full circle hi-low skirt pattern (which was way too full), and then I cut it into 8 pieces and taped them together with keeping the waist length but overlapping pieces on the skirt edge until I was happy with the waist-edge ratio, which turned out to be a little over half-circle in the end. After trying few versions this is the one I'm most happy with how it looks like. I slimmed down the sleeve too (the left one, from the doll's point of view) - maybe I will loosen it a little on the final version, but I like it this way too!
Peplum has two velvet layers to keep the shape.


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So the next stage will be sewing the skirt in black velvet. Against my better judgement, I'm trying for non-stretch satin lining cause I already have some black satin fabric I can use - the skirt does not have places where it has to stretch, so hopefully, that is not going to mess up the look. If it looks awful, I will reassess...

 

Skirt made! This is actually a 2nd attempt, without the lining, after I wasn't too happy how the lined version came out - the lining itself was making the whole thing too stiff. The velvet alone does not have as much weight to hang nicely, as would the human size do, but it is enough to at least look good from the front. Glossy, stretchy velvet has some quirks and likes to bulge a bit in places, even though I tried to sew the seams as evenly as possible, but overall I am happy with the silhouette. The top is from Ingrid's fullset which I put on for some chest-coverage before I finish the jacket part - and I actually quite like that combination as an option too!


link to image
Next thing to do on the agenda - sewing the jacket in the black velvet

 

ah thank you and I will definitely dress her in that option from time to time even when the rest is finished!

 

Thank you @kt_2908

I had a few days off from work, so I had a chance to sew the black version of the jacket - and I'm quite happy with the result. For now, the belt is pinned at the back, but I will be making a belt just for this outfit from velvet that will have something to keep it in place.

link to image

I added the head and hair (one of the two pink wigs I have for her) plus the gloved hands to see how it all looks - at the moment there is a lot of black, but that will change once I will start adding the embellishments and will make the necklace - those will be silver, but with some slight pink/beige accents.
Also, a bonus pic with her fullest hat:

link

 

Thank you! I'm happy with the results so far as well The worst (pattern making) at least is behind me and go into having fun with embelishments

Many Thanks! Hopefully the rest of the project will come out nice too

Thank you, Weilansen! Like Cloudedmind mentioned, there are a lot of online tutorials, including on youtube. I learnt sewing half from my Mom and half by practice, so can't recommend a specific tutorial, but if you are looking specifically to sew for BJD or other dolls, DGRequiem on Etsy sells well-made patterns for different sizes, which have very good instructions and specified difficulty level, and also tips on fabric choice etc.
At least doll clothes can be sewn fully by hand, so no sewing machine skills are needed - all doll sewing I've done is just by hand.

Aw Thank you! Yeah, sewing velvet comes with all sorts of quirks to work out, like choosing the pile direction etc. really glad that part is over for this project haha

 

Thank you! I visit the sewing threads as well when I need to motivate myself - I wish you happy sewing!

Many thanks!

 

Hello everyone!

So… the outfit is now finished, and you can see below some pictures of how it looks like. I’m very happy with it, despite some differences from the original in the end I think it captured the charm of its bigger version. If I manage to overcome my shyness and decide on taking her to the local park and take some more pictures when the weather gets warmer, I will definitely post them her as well.



All sizes | Ingrid - Elie Saab outfit reconstruction | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52617951096_7c425a22da_b.jpg

More pictures in spoiler, including closeups, as they are quite big. If the images do not load for you, I added in also direct links to the flickr images

Spoiler: few images

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https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52618438903_ded04f0569_b.jpg



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Just to explain a bit how I made the embellishments:

The feather fans are actual feathers – just cut into very small pieces first for scale.

The birds were sewn on small beads on a black tulle, cut out afterwards and glued onto the dress.

The “grass” pieces, are small pieces of silver embroidery thread, covered with gloss medium and attached with resin onto small black pieced of leather, and they also have some crystals and beads glued all around.

The necklace was a thin piece of polymer clay cut out and baked in specific shape, covered with glittered resin and small crystals – this part kinda turned out a bit smaller than I planned but I liked how it looked enough to leave as it is.

The gloves have a piece of stretch lace trim around hem with also some crystals and a bird charm.

And that is it! I am however already working on a new runway outfit project… will post a new project thread at the end of the month after I work out the plan for it!

 

Thank you! Once I figured out how I want to do them it was pretty relaxing just slowly sewing and glueing the tiny pieces together.

 

Thank you all I'm very happy with the results as well!