I finished the fantasy outfits for my musical duo! We already had medieval outfits as well as Celtic outfits, but we lacked clothing that we could wear when performing at fantasy fairs. Those have less rules, so more options to go all-out with whatever you like!
Okay, there were a few restrictions we imposed on the outfits ourselves: as we would be wearing them during performances, they had to be practical (no wide sleeves that could interfere with playing our instruments!) and comfortable. As well as flexible when it comes to temperatures, meaning: layers that can either be worn or left out! And as our band is called ‘Tweedledum & Tweedledee’, I wanted to include a nod to chose characters as well.
This is what I made:
This is what the outfits look like without the capes:
The longsleeves can also be left out in case of hot weather. The skirt and pants are made of linen, so they are airy in summer. If it’s cold, we can wear thermo pants underneath.
I used a longsleeve pattern for men to make my band member’s shirt. I didn’t use a pattern for my dress and his tunic; I drafted them by eye.
I’m very happy with the fabrics! The petrol colored linen matches very well with the striped fabric, and I’m also happy with the comfortably soft knitted mustard fabric.
It took some time to attach all the beads to the seams of the tunic and dress, but it was worth it! They also match very well with the fabrics.
I hand-wove the lacings for the tunic, using a lucet. That was the only way I could have lacings matching the fabric colors well enough. Lucky me – I happened to have this blue cotton lying in my stash!
I also made the piping around the neckline, using scraps of the fabric from which the skirt and pants were made.
To be honest, I am also rather proud of the embroidery on the capelets. I am not an experienced embroiderer; this is the first time I used different kinds of stitches to create different widths.
My cape reads “Tweedle | Dum”, the cape of my band member reads “Tweedle | Dee” 😊
I could have zigzagged the edges of the cape with my sewing machine, but that would have looked crappy, so I hand-sewed the red fabric to the grey lining.
I re-used this lining fabric to create holders for the clip closures. The original ones were made of leather, but I didn’t like the look of them so I cut them away and used only the metal parts. This enabled me to make the clip holders the same shape as the dagging of the capelets. (Yes, details matter! 😎)
Time spent: 51 hours and 45 minutes (4,25 on the pants, 2 on the skirt, 6,25 on the tunic, 6,25 on the dress, 2,75 on my longsleeve and 6,75 on his (I made a mistake and had to unpick several stretch seams! 😫) and 11,75 per cape)
Costs: €54 per costume
I felt we needed matching hats as well, preferably made from felt. So I commissioned someone to make them for us based on my own designs. They turned out amazing! They really compete the costumes! <3
