Vice Admiral Holdo was an interesting challenge in draping and construction, it involved a fair amount of experimentation, and a whole lot of swearing. Deconstructing movie costumes is always interesting, it’s a puzzle process to figure out how they made the garment, a different kind of challenge than making something that doesn’t actually exist. With movies, I know someone made it, and my goal is to figure out how.
So if you are looking to create your own Vice Admiral, then this tutorial should help provide guidance, resources and general helpful hints! You can also see finished images, and check out my YouTube walk through.
This cosplay would not have been possible without the amazing support of my Patrons over on Patreon.
The Dress
The dress consist of three main portions: the body, the collar and the cape. The whole thing is constructed out of the same material, which while it is helpful to only need one fabric, it becomes much more important to find the right color. The dress of course looks very different depending on the lighting, and the resource image that you are looking at. In general you want to look for something the brown/grey/purple range, ‘pure’, ‘taupe’ and ‘mauve’ being good colors to search for. The fabric needs to have a good drape and some stretch as there are very few seams to fit the garment, rayon jersey is what I used.
I purchased the Telio Rayon Jersey Knit in Taupe, I used about 6 yards, but I didn’t line the dress, buy more fabric than you think… The fabric had a wonderful drape to it, though it was slightly too light in color, you may want to explore dying your own fabric or other colors, if you have more time than I did, I do recommend getting swatches, and check out other cosplayer links at the end of the post.
The dress was constructed via draping on a dress form, you can also purchase my pattern for the dress in my store. I took some rough measurements and used that as a guide to cut rectangles (working with the whole amount of fabric for draping is too much)! From there I placed the fabric on the dress form and marked where I wanted my seams and the draping at the neckline. The dress has two side seams and one center back seam, I didn’t use a closure as the dress has enough stretch to go on over my head. For the neckline draping I found on its own the fabric was draping too much, as I was not lining the dress, I compensated for this by double layering the fabric right at the neckline, using wonder under (a interfacing that bonds fabrics together).
The sleeves were made using a fairly standard sleeve pattern that I made about 10 inches longer than my arms. I then gathered the excess fabric to the length of my arms and secured the gathers in place. For the sleeve hem I just tucked the sleeve about an inch under and secured it in place with a few stitches at the sides.
The collar was made through guess-work and drafting, I would check out Marianne Pease Cosplay’s excellent tutorial for guidance. My collar attached to the top neckline and uses hooks and eyes to stay closed in the back. Much like the drape on the neckline I also used a double layer of fabric bonded together.
Finally the cape was made of two sections. The main section was formed out of a trapezoid that was gathered together and stitched a 1 inch piece of bias tape, rather than a hem I added a facing to part of the out edge to give it a nice finish. Sew Corellian cosplay has a great draft of her cape. The long section is just a very long strip of fabric sewed in place. The cape is a separate piece from the dress as a whole, as the cape as a lot of fabric I didn’t want its weight pulling the dress down, it sits over the top of the back of the dress, and the ends tuck underneath the dress at the shoulders. I used a hook and eye to keep is connected to the collar, and then to keep it in place I have two strips of elastic coming from the edge of the cape that then attach to my bra.
A note on undies! The fabric on this dress will show everything, I recommend getting a pair of Spanx (or similar undergarment) and a t-shirt bra, unless you really want people to know what your underwear looks like…
Accessories
Holdo rocks some pretty great jewelry!
Arm Bands: these can be purchased on ebay (more links). I sanded the bracelets slightly (to make the surface rougher), then primed them and painted them silver using acrylic paint and rub n buff, to give them the darker color that they have in the movie.
Rings: One is a larger pinkish/purple stone with surrounding stone, for which I found one that was pretty close at a thrift store and painted the stone. The other looks to have a combination of pearls and silver, I based mine again off a ring from the thrift store, and created the ‘pearls’ out of blobs of hot glue painted with nail polish.
Drop earrings: which appear to be a silver curl with a purple and silver drop bead. I made mine out of worbla attached to earring backs and painted them silver, then added the dangle bead that had the right sort of tear drop shape.
Tiara: was made out of wire, worbla and painting. For more details on the construction check out my YouTube tutorial!
Hair: I ended up dying my hair using Pravana Violet, I would do a mix of Pravana Violet and Magenta if you want a pinker color, and just washed over a few weeks to get it to fade. For a wig I would recommend the Arda Wigs Josephine in violet, or you can dye a wig to get a closer color.
Boots: these were a pair of block heels that I found at the thrift store. The are supposed to be in the same color as the dress, but I quite liked the contrast, and wanted to be able to wear them for other things. I went with some pretty high heels to get that stately look, but that’s up to you!
Resources
Check out these other cosplayers for more ideas and suggestions for your own Admiral Holdo Cosplay.
