Leia Ceremonial Dress Construction and Progress

I made this dress in two layers - an opaque, sleeveless underdress and a semi-transparent overdress with long sleeve-wings.

For the underdress, I used Simplicity 5049. Once I got the pattern home and read the instructions, I discovered that it wasn't actually a form-fitting dress, but rather was made to look form fitting from the front by pulling ties together at the back..

Alterations:
1) I needed to alter the dress to become form fitting. I did this by first cutting and sewing the original pattern and then taking in the side seams as necessary.
2) Make the original v-neckline into a rounded neckline.
3) I made facing for the neckline, drafting it out based on the new rounded neckline.
4) Added a zipper on the left side seam.
5) Made the armholes slightly larger, for greater comfort.

Needless to say, the mockup ended up being a very patch-work result. But that's what mockups are for.

For the sleeve-wings, I worked with several yards of lightweight stretchy 60" material. I started with the underdress mockup on my fitting clone, and draped the sleeve material over that such that the selvages ran from right to left and the 60" width ran from front to back.. I laid it so that the selvage edge on the front was a few inches below the bodice seam, with the rest of the 60" draping over the top and down the back. I fiddled with the way the fabric fell until I saw something that seemed to flow smoothly, at which point I pinned it to the underdress underneath it. I traced out the neckline and bodice pattern with a marker. I found that there was a bit of extra fabric going along the bottom of the bodice under each breast - which makes sense, given that I was laying a flat piece of material over a rounded surface. I dealt with this with a few small gathers. After some experimenting, I decided to incorporate the overlayer into the facing seam, rather than connecting only the underdress to the facing and having the overlayer go over than with a small hem. A couple of tacks around the neckline helped hold everything flat. Tacks on the back of the sleeve-wing at the shoulder helped hold that in place as well. I'm experimenting with tacking the first inch or two of the overlayer up the sideseam just above the horizontal bodice seam, to see which effect (tacked or not) I like better. I'm leaning towards tacked.

Next: 1) Trim and shape the bottom of the sleeve wings. 2) Take it all apart to use as a pattern for the real costume.