Belle’s yellow ball gown is one of the prettiest and most elaborate dresses in animation. It has a lot of tricky pieces, but Meow About Cosplay rose to the challenge – after she felt her skill level was high enough to make the bodice and ruched skirt. She worked on the dress for about a month and a half and used three separate patterns for it:
The dress is made from at least 3 separate patterns: a gown pattern for the bodice/boning, my Peach skirt pattern, lengthened to 81″ and then gathered for the skirt, and a children’s Belle costume pattern for the skirt drapes. I made the collar pattern myself from scratch.
The collar and skirt are made from glitter Casa satin (and there is quilt batting inside the collar so it looks more puffy). The bodice is made from stretch satin (because of an attempt… and failure… to make matching gloves), interfaced to hold its shape better. There are glass pearl beads on the dress for decoration. The drape things on the skirt are also made of stretch satin.
The shoes were dyeable champagne-colored shoes from Goodwill that I painted gold. I made a matching purse/bag from leftover fabric.
The first iteration of the costume used my standard 3-hoop skirt that I’ve used for Princess Peach, the Queen of All Cosmos, etc. but it didn’t support the heavy fabric of the skirt well enough, and it tended to sag near the bottom. I decided that more poof was required, so I ordered a 4-hoop skirt. Wow, what a difference it makes! Not only does the hoop support the dress much better (and keep the shape all the way to the bottom), but it also gives the proper shape. I feel like a cake when I’m wearing it! It’s such a big, happy poof and I think it improves the look of the dress a lot.
See more of Meow About Cosplay’s projects at her website.
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