As I have said - my plan was to make a crossover between this Star Wars costume and a respectable plus period Elizabethan gown. This required some planning before the making could even start.

Some observations and thoughts on the original gown considering the task at hand - I have written them down over a considerable amount of time, so some of them may seem double, but actually they all contain some new information.
I always do this sort of brainstorming before I start working on a gown while I just stare at various pictures and, if given the chance that it's a movie costume, I watch the scene several times and write down notes over a timespan of several days or even weeks, the time depending on me being satisfied with my musings.
Such a brainstorming would read like this:

• The white 'underdress' goes up far over the waist, can therefore not simply be substituted with an Elizabethan petticoat. My first thought was to make a petticoat plus bodice, but that wouldn't work.
  
• The sleeves of the black overdress of the Jamillia gown are so *not* period Elizabethan. Though at first sight they look like a crossover between hanging and Spanish sleeves, closer examination shows that they have a completely different shape.
  
• The front middle piece could be connected to the large, non-period black velvet collar.
• ...so could the sleeves.
  
• I could construct a hanging loose gown and/or just a wider kirtle for the black overdress with exchangeable sleeves.
  
• The headdress can easily be left off for the 'Elizabethan' version of the gown. For the 'Star Wars' version, however, it's absolutely necessary.
  
• The back of the overdress looks much like a kirtle or loose gown with a gore at the complete center back.
  
  
• The outer shape of the whole gown, if I leave off the collar, middle piece and sleeves in my mind, much resembles two gowns described in Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion - The cut and construction of clothes for men and women c. 1560-1620":
  namely the kirtle and the loose gown from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 1570/90 on pages 109 - 112 (this combination is also to be seen on the left side of the cover of this PoF book).
  Compare (I have flipped the illustration from PoF here to make it better comparable to Jamillia's gown):
  
  Looks quite similar, doesn't it?
  I think I should use those two gowns as basic patterns for the under- and overdress, then construct a separate, detachable collar with the 'Jamillia' sleeves. This way I can either wear the over- and underdress as half-way period Elizabethan clothing and with the collar and headdress, I would have the Jamillia gown.
  
• I could even go one step further and make the overdress turnable, meaning one side of the overdress in the crushed taffeta of the Jamillia gown and the other side, perhaps, in velvet with some slashing or so. I could wear the crushed side out when I want to be Jamillia and the velvet side out when I want to wear period Elizabethan clothing (because, let's be realistic - the crushed taffeta is not at all period...). Good idea; I will just have to see how I can make that.
  
• For the white edgings on collar and sleeves of the Jamillia gown I could use a silk brocade which I had in storage for a considerable amount of time now. I once planned to use it for a different project - however, I never started that project, so I guess now I can use it for something else... I could also use that brocade as decoration on the Elizabethan side of the gown...
  
• To determine the exact size of hoopskirt I need, I just need to apply basic math knowledge about how to calculate circles (and, yes, thank you - I know why I paid attention in my maths class):
  Assuming Jamillia is as tall as I am, which would be 178cm with shoes - then I can say by looking at the picture that shows the complete Jamillia that her skirt is about 1/2.5 of that size wide; which would be about 71.2cm.
  By multiplying this with Pi (3,14159265358979) I can now calculate that the hem circumfence of her skirt must be about 224cm. The closest size of a finished bridal hoopskirt to that (because I don't want to construct an own hoopskirt for that gown - *sometimes*, buying is easier!) is 220cm - this is why I have decided for that size.
  
• To construct the skirt, which lies quite flat over the hoopskirt, I think I would be safe by making the skirt bottom circumfence 10 cm wider than the hoop circumfence is - meaning that it will have to be about 230cm wide.
  
• The sleeves of the Jamillia gown, as they will be set to the collar, should be attached to a small, short vest to which the collar will also be attached. This way the collar with the sleeves will be stable around my neck and body, and I won't have to worry about the collar slipping or the sleeves getting out of place.
  
• I am not quite sure about the 'Lace decorations' on the underskirt front side of the Jamillia gown. I *think* I have to do something else, because apart from ruffs and edgings, I don't remember of ever hearing about such lace decorations on Elizabethan costumes.
  I still have a considerably beautiful jacquard fabric that could work. Or I could perhaps embroider the front. Or both. Hmmmm....
  
• I think (though I may be wrong) that the front middle piece is basically beaded with black sequins (which would make it easy for me - I'd just go and buy a yard or so of sequined fabric and use that as the basic material), and over those black sequins they have pinned diamond shapes made of black jet cut pearls. These diamond shapes are bigger at the top and smaller at the bottom; plus they overlap at the top. Here's what I mean:
  
  Left = unedited version; right = marked version.
  The red diamonds, in my opinion, mark the diamond shapes of pearls, overlapping at the top, at the bottom they are smaller. They also have either a rhinestone or clear crystal pearl in their centers.
  The blue circle at the top marks the top shape which seems to be round (plus has something likely to a wing- or heart symbol in silver beads in it).
  The green arrows mark the loose strands hanging down from the top piece.
  Well, that's at least what I *think* I can see here. The diamond shapes should be simple to construct with wire and pearls, but it will probably be quite time consuming... well... as I have no particular date to which I would like to wear that gown, I can take myself time...
  
• After enlarging the kirtle pattern I came to a skirt circumfence for the original kirtle in my size of c. 260cm - quite close to what I first calculated; 40cm are not much when it comes to the circumfence of a skirt hem....
  However, now I know that I have to look for a 250-cm-hoopskirt instead of a 220-cm-one.
  I should also look out for one that has at least three stable hoops. If I indeed should make the loose gown turnable with a velvet in- or outside (depending on which side I'm wearing out...), then there will be a considerable amount of weight on the hoops. To avoid them starting to "escape" through the front gap of the loose gown, I'd better choose some strong ones that will carry the weight without 'complaining'....
  
• I have to find a solution for the mother of pearl elements of the headpiece.
  Mother of pearl elements are so expensive that I could cry, and I have not seen *one* yet that *has* the size of just one of the original elements. I guess I will once again have to play with Fimo, plus some pearlized painting colors.
  
• Pattern wise, there is some kind of 'giant forepart' on the kirtle from Patterns of Fashion.
  Well, it's of course not a real forepart, but a piece of "soft ivory silk with fine silver threads in the weft (...), embroidered with couched black silk thread resembling buttonhole twist and 3mm (1/8) spangles in bluish grey metal"¹, sewn to the front portion of the gown. This is the part of the kirtle that would show below the loose gown.
  I am considering making this part up as a detachable "full front" forepart for the Elizabethan gown - this way I could add period decoration that I could not if I was doing it 'just' the Jamillia way. By no means I am planning to make up two turnable garments - the loose gown is really enough.

Planning finished:

After the above written brainstorming, I came to this finished plan:

• Construction of a kirtle and loose gown from the above mentioned "Patterns of Fashion" patterns.
• One side of the loose gown will be made of the crushed black taffeta, the other of velvet which will be decorated in a likely way to the original gown, though I will have to leave the button decorations all over the front off because they would bunch up too much when I turn the gown.
  This way I can wear the crushed site out when being Jamillia and the velvet side out when I want to be Elizabethan. I will keep the sleeves of the original loose gown for the 'Elizabethan' version. If I turn the loose gown, they can still be there and work as stabilizers for the large collar which will without doubt cover them completely. They will also stabilize the Jamillia sleeves.
• The underdress will be made from the PoF-kirtle-pattern. I will make it of the white jacquard I still have. If I should still have the nerve to do so, I will embroider the center front in a likely way to how Jamillia's gown is decorated (though - as I have said - the original gown *may* have lace decorations on it...).
  I will also keep the original detachable sleeves of the kirtle and actually make them in two versions.
  Jamillia wears narrow crushed taffeta sleeves under the wider ones:
  
  but those wouldn't be period for the Elizabethan version of the kirtle. So I will make two pairs of sleeves - one pair in crushed taffeta, the other of more period "Elizabethan" material. I can exchange them by the lacings which are also on the original gown.
  I am not certain yet about the "full gown forepart" described in the brainstorming - I guess I will see what I make here during the making process.
• For the gown I will order a bridal hoopskirt with a hem circumfence of 250 cm. I decided to order a white one - though I usually love colored hoopskirts, I think that due to the fact that the kirtle will also be white, I will avoid any showing through by using a white hoopskirt.
• The collar, 'Jamillia' sleeves and the 'Jamillia' front middle pieces will be made in one piece, constructed over a very short vest which will just go down below the bust. This allows me to wear those 'non-Elizabethan' items when I want to be Jamillia, and to leave them off when I want to be Elizabethan.
• The Jamillia headdress will be made... somehow. I honestly don't have many ideas yet how to make it, but I will. Thanks to the person who has invented Fimo, I will also complete that particular task, I guess
  I will also have to think about some sort of period headdress which loosely resembles the Jamillia headpiece. I want something similar, yet period Elizabethan. Perhaps I could decorate an attifet with mother-of-pearl shapes.

After this planning stage is finished, I can now construct the kirtle as soon as I find time to do so and have the nerve *sigh*....

Update:

After the latest exhibit pictures it became clear that the white underskirt is not decorated with lace, as I had thought, but that it is indeed embroidered.
Not that I would want to do that... really, no... however, just to keep myself entertained, I have programmed the embroidery from the exhibit swatch pictures.
In the embroidery software, the preview looks like this:

I think it's a quite close match.
And as I'm currently in an awfully good mood - you can download the zipped embroidery file here.
You'll need a Brother embroidery machine to use that file, though; or any other high end embroidery machine and software that can convert a *.pes file. The file is made for the *big* embroidery hoop - 30x13cm (about 12x5 inch). If you don't have the big hoop, but the smaller one (18x13), then you'll have to resize the embroidery with your software.
This above shown piece of embroidery, which is 13cm / about 5 inch high, consists of 29447 needle stitches and takes about 35 minutes to embroider (not counting the time to change the thread).
On the original 'Jamillia' gown, this embroidery is repeated at least 15 times (plus - see below - in about the same number).
That means an embroidery time of at least 15 hours - and almost half a million needle stitches. Plus probably about 10 spools of expensive embroidery yarn.
As much as I like that embroidery - I don't think I'm willing to do that...
There's another, much likely pattern embroidered to the skirt (basically it's the one above, just with some mirroring and additional shapes) - this was *not* in the swatch pictures, but I'll program it someday else anyway so that anyone who actually *wants* to have the exact pattern embroidered can do so.
As I have already written - I don't think I will do it (though, of course, I might still change my opinion concerning that...).

Why not browse my other costumes in the meantime until I update this page?

¹: from Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion c. 1560-1620", page 110