Star Wars Senate

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Fabric for this gown

The top layer of the original gown is made of an etched silk velvet, and I was lucky enough to get a bolt of the *original* fabric!

As I purchased it in white, it was still a risk to dye it.
Would the colors (a dark, deep violet, having an unearthly, lighter purple sheen) be right?

Well.. here are the first pictures after dyeing. Isn’t that absolutely incredibly wonderful? I have taken several pictures, and on each picture the velvet has a different sheen (Pictures were taken with daylight, flashlight and inside light). The pictures were taking while the fabric hang over a white door, so the etched designs mostly show up lighter than they will when the gown will be finished, as this part will be backed with darker fabric:

To compare, look at this picture of the original gown:

By now I have finished the front insert of the gown. I used AB coated sequins; AB coated cut jet pearls and AB coated cut glass beads on AB coated cupped sequins on the insert:

After finishing the insert, we can put this into the bodice that we have already prepared with the necessary soutache embroidery (no less than 100 yards of Soutache went into the complete embroidery, by the way!):

Now we can prepare the embroidery for the sleeves:

When we have finished that, we can sew the sleeves to the bodice; but not without forgetting to insert the belled undersleeves which will cup the hand when wearing:

After endless hours of embroidery, we have finally finished the soutache embroidery of the front panel:

(this seems small, but is actually one yard high!)

Now, after taking our time to cry shamelessly for some minutes, we can take the task to complete the skirt. Here it is:

 

Some more pictures taken outside, just to get the color correctly…:

Next, and last, thing will be the overdress.

Here is the upper part of the overdress. The first picture shows about the right colors; but the second shows the better details.

And here are the pictures of the finished gown. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the complete gown that were taken outside. The colors are a little weird due to artificial light and flashlight; the real colors are more like the pictures that seem a little ‘dull’ – compare them to the pictures above of the underdress which were taken in daylight.
Also, the hoopskirt that is under this gown is too small for this skirt; but the person I made this gown for has her own which is larger than mine.