Steampunk Roger and Jessica Rabbit, Pt 1

Every year we camp out at the Texas Renaissance Festival with our little camping group.  We call ourselves Clan Wicked Elements!  Surprisingly enough we just realized that 2016 will be the 10th consecutive year we have camped as a group.  Wow, Time Flies when you are having fun. 

For the 2015 season we decided on a Clan costume theme and we selected Steampunk Disney. This is the blog about My family costume theme... Roger and Jessica Rabbit. 

So we set out to design the costume and started with a google image search.  After hours of hunting and pecking and reviewing pintrest, google, and much more I found the image I was inspired by! 





Original art by Khallion @ Deviant Art (Link to Artist)

I found this artistic expression absolutely gorgeous and I love the Art Noir feel. 

Although I would have loved to design my outfit exactly like the picture I also didn't have the time nor the skill level required to do this justice.  So I opted to recreate my favoriate elements of this artistic expression. 




The corset being the center piece of the outfit needed to be PERFECT.  I found an amazing deal at Corset Queen for a red corset with black beaded overlay. 

I got a buy one get one deal so it worked out that I also have the core piece for a future costume.


Once the corset was procured I started on the skirt. Now, the Jessica I wanted to recreate was in the performance dress.... it sparkled beautifully! The only problem was I did NOT want sequence.  The material needed to be perfect.  Getting a sparkling red material that hangs the right way and is not uber expensive is a very difficult task indeed.  I wanted small sparkles that covered the material.  The hunt began.

Did you know there is permanent spray glitter for material?!?  So very excited and I now am the proud owner of a lightly sparked phone case, Pink glittery canvas shoes and a sparkle lettered custom tshirt!  OMG! I want to glitter absolutely everything.... but I digress. 

On an outing to the thrift store I found the most beautiful burgundy bridesmaids dress.  I scooped it up for a whopping $5.00... If I were to procure the material to make it I never would have been able to afford the material this dress was made of.

I found this wonderful stock photo of the dress I found. So armed
with a seam ripper and Netflix I began the deconstruct process.

I removed the lining and the bodice.  There was also an wrapped portion of the skirt that was removed and reattached in the right direction. 

It's a good thing that I hoard fabric and curtain panels... The bustle was created with a burgundy microfiber curtain panel I had in my fabric collection. 


I also do not like to wear a corset without a chemise of some kind.  I know that the image has Jessica's shoulders exposed but I prefer to be covered.  So I also found a shear Picnic cover in the perfect burgundy to accent the ensemble.




Here is a view in the planning phase.  I did not use the belt (or any for that matter).  I did not want a belt rubbing off the beads. 









I used the free pattern from the How Joyful blog to craft the chemise top.  I made a couple of changes.  First I left the front open to give the "Keyhole" affect and added a rose belt clasp to close at the neck. 




The skirt is a wrap around with perm glitter sprayed on. 

Instead of gloves I made angel wing detachable sleeves from the sleeves of a velvet dress (also procured at a thrift store).  I then added some lacey trim and a wonderful applique for detail.  This was the second easiest part to complete next to the curtain bustle. 



The final part... the hair!  I have decently long hair but it is brown and I am not a good looking red head no matter how much I want to be :).  So I found a long wig on AliExpress very cheap!

My handsome better half made me a head stand to be able to style the hair (and make hats later). for which I adore!  See for yourself.

I was going to use the Victory roll style but due to the construction of the wig I needed to redesign the hair.  I had a wonderful necklace that made a beautiful hair wrap and I did pin curls.  The results were nice.



For the bustle I didnt have time to sew it before our camping event so we used breakline and made what I like to call Bustle Rings...  This allowed me to tie my pouch and other items to the outfit since I didnt wear a belt in order to protect the beads. 

Overall the first run was a success.  I need to tweak a few things to make it perfect.  I'm going to extend the bustle material by adding the other half a panel as well as make some bloomers from the purple velvet material to gain a little modesty (the wind showed my shorts). 

Check out the conclusion!