Bad, Naughty Zoot!

 And so we have arrived at the day after another cult classic Friday at the Regal cinema. Originally last month they announced it would be a film called Withnail and I, but recently they changed it (perhaps due to low interest) to Monty Python and the holy grail. So last minute, I decided to make a new costume.

There isn't a great deal of female characters in the film, at least not ones with speaking parts who aren't played by men. so I chose Zoot, or was it Dingo? I guess that depends on how naughty I've been.

I cut the dress pieces out of a piece of fabric that was a little over 2m long (but luckily quite wide) before work on Thursday

Only just fit the sleeves in there.

Then began sewing it up after work. As usual I started with the shoulder seams, then I sewed a long thing rectangle, folded in half, along the neckline for the collar.

I then eased in the sleeves, and sewed up the sleeve and side seams. Here is how it looked pinned at the back, worn over a slip for modesty, as the fabric was a tiny bit sheer

Excuse the mess on the bed, I had just torn
apart the house looking for my Columbia
jacket for Sunday

I then sewed up the back seam, leaving about 5 inches at the top open, I then attached a button and button loop at the collar to close the opening. I overlocked around the bottom edge and hemmed the sleeves. I then gave it a good press. On Friday morning I made the sleeveless lace overlay, using the same pattern pieces as the base dress, omitting the sleeves and collar, and cutting out the back piece on the fold to eliminate that seam. As I used a stretch lace, the overlay was easy to throw on over the top without the need for any closures. Unfortunately my lace has a much smaller pattern than the lace used in the movie, but as I was just using stash fabric, and put this together in less than 2 days, I'm not concerned.

Then I needed to make the hat. The base was a VERY simple little pillbox hat, which I just constructed out of cardboard. Normally I would have covered the cardboard with fabric for a nicer finish, but I was being lazy. For the crown part, I traced the top of my top hat (worn previously for my Rocky Horror Costume) adding roughly 5mm all around. I then cut a long strip of 4 inch wide cardboard to fit around the crown, with a bit of overlap. I folded down 1 inch along this strip, then cut into the folded over section every 1cm or so, to allow it to curve around the crown, which was glued together. I then folded approximately 1.5cm up into the band to make it a bit narrower, and to give me something to pin the veil to.

The veil part was a large circle of sheer white fabric (I used some old curtains I had in my sewing stash) which I overlocked around the edge of, stretching the bias as much as I could while I did it, to give the fluted effect to the edge. This was then folded in half, slightly unevenly, and pinned to the inside of the hat band, to fit around my face, with about 7-8 inches extra either side. I found this gave a pretty close look to the costume used in the movie. I then added a small piece of chain, which was black as that was all I could find, and used a cute faux pearl heart shaped earring on the front. And that was the Costume done, with several hours to spare!

Quick selfie before we headed out the door

I got my husband to take a few quick photos of me at the cinema. We were quite early, so there was only about 5 people in the cinema at the time. I wish I had been able to find my contact lenses, as the glasses kind of spoiled the look. Oh well.

Hopefully there will be a few better photos taken on the night posted to the Regal Cinema's Facebook page soon that I can steal.

I didn't win best dressed this time, that honour went to a very dedicated black knight with no arms, but I did get a free ticket for the Regal for my troubles, so it was well worth it.

Dixie