Classic Princess Leia gown

Last week I decided to make a new classic Leia gown, in costuming circles it's also known as the ANH senatorial gown. I had actually thrown away my old one, it was simply too worn and way too big for me. I had used cheap polyester interlock for the old dress, and it had gotten a lot of runs and was quite dirty as well. I had bought new for the dress many years ago, but since it's no costume that I wear very often I had never felt really inspired to redo it, but when it was time for helping Musikhjälpen I felt that Classic Leia would be the best costume, not the least because I was going to be the only rebel.

Anyway I'm not going to make a full tutorial, because if you want to make the gown I really recommend Pam's complete tutorial. I'm going to point out a couple of things that I've done though and my solutions to a couple of tricky issues.

First thing though when looking for reference photos of this gown. For most people it seems as if Leia is wearing the same dress throughout A New Hope and at the end of Empire Strikes Back, in fact there are actually three dresses, the difference comes mainly in the size of the sleeves and the fabric used. The original ANH dresses have disappeared, so it's the one from ESB that has been used for promo shots and has been part of different exhibitions. According to the Star Wars Costumes book the original was made in crepe de chine, while the ESB gown is a bit heavier than the ANH one.

Now as for fabric choice. Most costumes chose to make the gown out of a polyester knit fabric. In my case I've chosen thin polyester interlock from Stoff och Stil. In my first attempt I selflined the whole gown, but that made it too heavy. For my new version I still used the same fabric, since I had it in my stash and I'm not going to use it for anything else, but I decided to just use one layer to give the gown a lighter and more airy feel.

This is the basic shape of the gown, a simple T-tunic. I'm quite short so I have no problem fitting the arms on the width of the fabric, and just fold it double. For those of you that are tall, or can't find fabric that's wide enough you can put a seam at the waist, since that's going to be hidden by the belt. Even if you are short enough many costumers add an elastic at the waist, the original had some kind of smocking at the side, to keep the gown in the right position.

With the basic gown cut out and sewn together I felt that it was too seethrough for me to be comfortable in it. Carrie Fisher only used duck tape instead of a bra, according to George Lucas there was no underwear in space, but I have a bit more to support and want to be able to wear a good bra. The thing I did was to add a floating halflining. It's simply the same fabric, folded in half, but it only reaches just below my butt, and I didn't cut any sleeves. It's attached to the gown only at the neckline. I can wear underwear without having to worry about the visibility, but it doesn't affect the look or the drape of the gown.

The most tricky part of the gown is the collar. It needs to be a standup collar. For my first gown I simply took a rectangle of fabric, folded it in half and attached it at the neck. It worked but I always felt that it was too flimsy and soft. This fabric that I'm using can't stand heat, something I've discovered when I happened to burn a big hole in my first gown when I was going to press it, so using a fusible interfacing was not an option. To be honest I've never felt happy with fusible interfacing anyway. For the new collar I decided to make it more shaped and to use some kind of support that I could attach by sewing it on.

First thing was to create a pattern for the collar. I simply put a piece of tracing paper around the neckhole and drew the outline.

From that outline I drew a wider shape, that I wanted. This only served as a guideline though. This first shape was too angled didn't look good. I didn't take any photos of my mock ups, but in the end I cut out a piece of heavy canvas, left over from my 18th century stays, with no seam allowance. That was going to be the interfacing. Using that canvas as a new pattern I cut out two pieces of interlock, with seam allowance, and had these three pieces.

The interlock pieces are a bit longer than necessary, since they are going to overlap at the back so I can add invisible snaps to them.

I sewed the interlock pieces together at the top, then I inserted the canvas between them and made sure to catch it with a row of top stitching.

At this point I had attached the hood to the neckline of the gown, and now I sewed the collar on over the hood. The hood is a trapezoid shape, and has a rolled hem that I sewed by hand. A good thing with the handstitching is that it's possible to take tread a hairpin through it, and that way you can invisibly attach the hood to your hair, which is great when you have a bad hair day and the buns refuse to behave.

The hood was gathered by hand before being attached.

On this photo of the gown inside out you can see that I left the raw edge visible on the inside of the neckhole. It's not my most beautiful work, but the fabric doesn't ravel, and since I was having a fever when I did this I didn't have the energy to make it look good on the inside.

These final two pics shows the complete gown.

The lining is visible when it's backlit, but not when I'm wearig it under normal light. The sleeves and the gown is hemmed with a double hem on the machine.

Some more practical advice
Don't make the gown too wide or too long, that was a mistake I made with my first gown. Even if it blouses a bit, it shouldn't do it too much. Since I have quite a big difference in width between my wasit and my bust and hips I simply made the gown just a bit bigger than my biggest measurement, the hips, and that is enough to make it blouse at the waist. As for the length it just reaches down to my feet.

As mentioned previously you can use an elastic or gathers at the waist to give it more shape.

Don't forget to add a slit that goes just above the knee. I did and had to rip it up on this gown.

The hood should cover the belt in the back, so be long enough to reach your butt.

If you have fair skin, the most invisible underwear is actually to wear something that is bright red! The white and red blends together and is more invisible than nude or white underwear.

Costume info

Costume: Classic Princess Leia gown
Fabric: 5 m thin white polyester interlock
Notions: white sewing thread, a scrap of cotton canvas, two clear plastic snaps for closure
Accuracy: There are more exact replicas out there of this gown, but anyone who sees this will recognize it as Princess Leia, I'd say 80%. The inaccuracy mostly comes down to the choice of fabric.
Hours to make: 10, most of that was the hemming of the hood and the collar.
Cost: $23 (the fabric cost $4/m)

Classic Princess Leia

March 2009

As a female Star Wars fan, and costumer, it felt more or less compulsory to make the classic white princess Leia costume, with the cinnamon roll hairstyle. I also wanted a costume that would finally be recognized as a Star Wars costume. The gown itself was pretty simple, and the belt wasn't too complicated, but I have struggled a lot with the hair.

The gown is a simple t-tunic. Meaning that I folded the fabric. layed down and draw the arms and width of the costume. The fabric is a poly interlock fabric, the original was made in some kind of cheap 1970's fabric that isn't available anymore. The hood is a trapezoid shape that I made a roll hem on by hand and attached to the neck opening. An important thing with the hood is that it's open in the back, so you only attach the short sides of the trapezoid piece of fabric to the neck. The hood is a bit on the small side, since I managed to burn a hole on one end of it when I tried to press the hem. The collar is simply a piece of fabric folded in two. The side seams go down to about the knees, and then they are open to form two splits. It's in two layers, otherwise it would be too transparent.

The fabric has a tendency to get runs, and it's also too big so I'm not too happy with it anymore. I have fabric to make a new one, and if I remade it I would change a couple of things.

1.  I would make it smaller. 
2. I would only attach the two layers at the neck, and then I would attach the lining by simply rolling the hem of the outer fabric over the lining
3. I would add some kind of interfacing to the collar to make it stand better.
4. I would possible add some elastic in the waist, so that the blousing wouldn't be controlled by the only the belt.

 The belt is made from faux leather, ordered from Stoff och Stil and a sheet of aluminium. For my first belt I cut both the shape of the metallic plates, and the round things in the middle from the same aluminium. It's soft enough that I could use a pair of cheap ordinary scissors, they got destroyed in the process by as I said they were cheap. For my next belt I had bought button blanks for the round middle things. They were a bit smaller so I had to make the plates smaller as well, since my waist

Bottom is v.1 of the belt, top is v.2.

hadn't changed that meanst that the spaces between the plates are bigger on my second version. I have a big problem with the plates falling off from the belt, I've tried E6000, contact clue and superglue, but I still haven't found something that make them stay properly.

I  need to remake the belt, I've lost quite a bit of weight since I made them, and the last time I had to use saftey pins to prevent if from falling down to my hips all the time. I think I have enough faux leather for one more belt, I definitely have enough aluminium.

There are a lot of tutorials out there to make this costume. I mostly used this one, which has patterns for both the dress and the belt and gives all the measurements in both metric and imperial units.

The most iconic thing with this costume is the hairstyle, and that's also what I consider the biggest challenge. When I made this costume I had come long

Too big buns in autumn 2010

enough in my development as a costumer that I had decided that I couldn't do Princess Leia with blonde hair. Look at my Padmé costumes, I was happy to do the hairstyle with my own dark blonde hair. I decided to go for a wig. I got recommended a wigmaker on ebay and bought a prestyled Leia wig there. It was a huge disappointment when it arrived. The wig itself was nice, and the buns were well styled, but it was way too small. When I put it on the buns were both more or less placed on top of my head, rather than on the sides. My first solution was to buy some fake hair and roll up around the pre-existing buns. This meant that they got way off when it came to proportions, they were huge!

Since then I've bought a really long wig and what I do when it's time to do the buns is that I make a small bun out of fake hair and pin it on to the wig. Then I roll the long hair around that little bun and try to get them as symmetric as possible. It's really hard though, or I'm not good enough with hair, so I rarely have to buns of the same size and shape. What I would like to do is buy a short or medium length wig that I can put on, and put the hair in two ponytails. Then I would just like to make two permanent buns that I can attach over the ponytails. This is the way that many costumers who use their own hair with extensions do it, and I think that would make it easier to get a good look every time.

A good thing with this costume though is that you always pin the hood up so that you can hide the worst of the hairstyle. I do that almost every time when I wear it.

The gun that I'm using is a replica of her DDC defender. It was made by a fellow trooper, and I won't say the name since the trooper isn't making things to sell to other people.

Status: active

I thought I had retired the costume, but our regular Leia in Sweden wasn't available for an event this autumn so I took it out from the closet and used it again. I would love to totally redo this costume, I h

Me in autumn 2013.

material for the gown and belt, and then it's on to buy a new wig and make permanent buns. It wouldn't be too hard, I just need to dedicate some time to it, and I'm so bad with updating my costumes since I think it's funnier to make new ones. Still there might be more chances where a Leia is needed so I think I need to do this in the coming year.

For example I'm doing Leia on Sunday at a troop at Toys'R'Us in Kungens Kurva, when our base's primary Leia can only be there on Saturday.

Also one thing I'd like to add is what I wear under. The dress is a bit see through, even with two layers of fabric. The most common advice is to wear nude underwear, but in fact the best choice is actually bright red. At least if you have fair skin. The bright red against the white fabric creates a perfect invisible shade. Yes, I'm wearing bright red underwear in all pictures of me in the gown.