With the dress assembled it was time for the finishing touches. I use that phrase loosely because this finishing took way longer than the initial construction, which isn’t including the odyssey of finding the trims. With much trial and error I found trims and decorations that I was reasonably happy with. There are so many different ones used and it will be almost impossible to find the exact version of each. In the materials list I have linked the final trim I used, and I have included links to alternatives.
This post covers the trims for the bodice and the skirt, for the other parts of the costume head to the following articles:
Trims and Trims and Trims
Materials
- Flora Silver Trim (8 yrds)
- This one took a lot of googling, the one linked above I had to call them and ask for it in silver as it is not listed on the website. They have a pretty big collection of trims to pick from, and others might work better.
- Heritage Trading on ebay also has some potential bullion trim options (example).
- Silver Cord Wide (5 yrd)
- Felt/Batting (1 yrd)
- Gold Metallic Lace (1 yrd)
- Gold/White metallic lace (this was purchased at Jo Ann but does not appear to be available any longer)
- Scalloped gold lace with fringe (1 to 2 yrd)
- Pearl Beads
- Silver gimp trim (1.5 yrd)
- Central bullion medallion
- Also sold by Heritage Trading
- Silver Seed beads
- Small Gold Appliques
- Large Gold Appliques
- Alternative 1 (Call to ensure they have stock)
- Metallic silver yarn
There is some importance to the order of the trim, but generally it’s just a matter of getting everything in place. Some can be machined on, but the vast majority will be hand stitching.
Decolletage gold fabric – The central v-neckline is covered by gold fabric, this goes to just above the top of the corset neckline. I machine stitched this in place. Mine was made of layers of two separate fabrics (white lace and gold lace) as neither was quite right on its own.
Underbust trim – At the underbust there is a strip of silver gimp trim and underneath there is a string of pearls. I machine sewed on the gimp and then hand stitched the pearls in place, leaving a small gap in the pearls at the center bust.
Silver floral trim at the neckline – The choice of trim I had, made this a process. I first had to cut apart the trim separating leaves and flowers, then I had to sew the tiny silver leaves to the larger leaves. Then I could hand sew them to the bodice, they were in sets of one flower to two leaves, there were 8 sets in total. A different trim may need a different process. The trim was then sewn to follow the plunge neckline in the front making a v-shape, and on the back of the dress the floral trim goes straight down from the shoulders rather than following the back neckline.
Silver cording at the neckline – On the outside of the floral trim/ ‘under’ the floral trim, I hand stitched a row of the silver cording, this follows the same line as the floral trim, and overlaps the trim slightly.
Gold scalloped trim with fringe – Around the entire neckline (behind the gold lace and floral trim), I hand stitched the gold scalloped trim, I only needed a small amount to peek out from behind the floral trim. The trim follows the lace neckline and the back neckline. I measured the trim before attaching it, found the center, and then I attached 4 half large gold appliques which were centered behind the gold lace V, before hand stitching the remaining trim in place.
Bead and pearl clusters – Follow the diagram on ever after costumes if you want it to match the movie, as there is seemingly little rhyme or reason to the placement. The clusters are made of either one pearl and five seed beads, or one seed bead and five pearls. The clusters cover the front of the bodice, under the arm and the back, up to the floral trim.
Bullion and extra central medallions – The bullion trim was hand stitched in place to the front of the bodice. I made smaller medallions to surround it in teardrop shapes out of the off-white satin and metallic organza, as well as some silver embroidery thread.
Silver floral trim on skirt – With the bodice completed the trim could be added to the skirt. This used the same silver floral trim but arranged in a different way. I Used one central flower and two leaves (with extra tiny silver leaves) spaced about and inch away from the flower. To connect the parts I used a chain stitch with silver yarn. I then hot glued on some spare silver leaves to fill in the gaps. There were 8 sets going down the front, and I tried to have both sides match as best as possible.
Skirt Silver Cord – Like on the bodice, the silver cord was hand stitched on, this was at the very edge of the front panel fabric, down the center front, I also folded under the center front serged edge to hide the serging.
Central flower – After all the silver trims are in place the final flower cluster was added right at the center front under bust seam, covering up the join of skirt and bodice. This was a single flower, with four leaves around it.
With all the trims in place it is time to hem the underskirt, and then the overskirt. The underskirt has a padded hem, about 3 inches tall, I folder the fabric over the padding to the back and then about an inch under the padding so there were no raw edges. The actual dress had 5 rows of french knots on the hem, I decided to just have 5 rows of stitches spaced about an inch and a half apart, because french knots seemed like too much work…
The outer skirt was surged so the lengths tapered to a train at the back and the fronts matched the length of the underskirt. I then folded the fabric under once and machine stitched the hem.
Next up, the sleeves!
