Resources for Leia and Padme costumes

 At Närcon this weekend I talked a lot to a person about Padmé and Leia costumes, and I realized that simply due to the fact that I was around while the Padmé costumes were being analyzed and before social media, I have a lot of information about them, since I followed the progress of my fellow costumers. Today there is a lot of info social media, but it's usually hard to sort through social media posts to find clear and structured information on the costumes. Thankfully though a lot of the early research was done on forums and websites that are still around, if you know where to look, and this post is my way of trying to gather them in one place. So yes, if you want to make one of these costumes, but especially Padmé's, then I really recommend taking the time to read up on old internet post and on forums that were made before the advent of everyone posting videos and short clips of what they are doing.

First of all if you want to make a Padmé or Leia costume, the best way to start is over at the rebellegion. The Rebel Legion standards are lists of required elements if you want to become a member of the Rebel Legion, even if you don't want to become a member those lists are clear instructions on what parts the costumes are made up of. The Rebel Legion also has a forum, where persons making their version of the costumes have posted and are posting their progess, so you can see how other people has tackled a specific costume. Those forums can be found here: Rebel Legion Royalty/Senatorial forums

The most comprehensive website out there for Padmé, and Leia and generic jedi costumes, is Padawan's guide. Maggie, who ran the site, did and amazing job of collecting all available info on the costumes, and it is split between reference images, fanmakes and construcions tips for each costume. She basically summed up all the research that was done and made sure it was available in one place. That it is still alive, even if it hasn't been updated in many years, is a great gift from Maggie to all Star Wars costumers out there today.

A lot of what Maggie posted were summaries on what was discussed on the Jedi Council forums' Costuming and Props board. Back in the early 2000s this was the place where all Padmé costumers gathered and discussed their costumes, and posted their progress. All the Padmé Amidala costumes have their own tag in the forum - so that can be found here. Most of the threads are locked nowadays due to having been inactive for too long, but they are still there and are fill with information. Leia's costumes can be found here.

One costume that I get asked about is the iconic red gown from Episode one, also know among costumers as the "red invasion" costume. Back when blogs were a big thing on the internet Naergi from Germany did an extensive analysis, and the best recreation of the gown I have seen. If you are interested in doing that costume, you need to read her blog post. She also has other Star Wars costumes on her blog, so can be worth looking into for other characters as well. 

With this piece of internet archaeology I hope I can help some people who wants to make their own Padmé Amidala costume, and don't know where to start. Compared to Leia's costumes, that were basically made for a low budget film, all of Padmé's costumes are complicated, either in cut and construction or in materials, or in both so making one will always involve a lot of work and usually quite a lot of money as well. 

TFA Leia makes a comeback for TROS

Today The Rise of Skywalker premieres in the US, but I have already seen it twice since it premiered yesterday in Europe, and I got the chance to see the VIP preview on Tuesday. I hadn't planned at trooping the premiere, for the first time ever. But after some coaxing I reached out to our local cinema in Falun, and they were happy to have us there.

Now I have complained that I am a bit bored with my X-wing. I then realised that I had fabric that I had saved for remaking my TFA jumpsuit. My original jumpsuit was made in a dreadful plastic fabric, and it had also mysterously shrunk around my tummy and hips. In fact I was surpised that I could paut it on at all. This new fabric I had was a thin cotton with a slight stretch in it. I had bought it for Admiral Daala, but when it arrived I thought it was too light and I also saw that it would be a lot better for TFA Leia. Well now it was time to finally remake the jumpsuit. I simply cut up my old jumpsuit to use as a pattern and added some cm in every seam to make it bigger, and then I sewed it together. This was done in two evenings, so I was in a rush and didn't have time to take photos. It worked fine except for the collar that ended up a bit too big, I might redo it in the future.

The vest and belt still fit, thankfully. The boots were too small at the top, so I couldn't zip them all the way up, but I don't think anyone noticed that. Wearing the boots I remembered just how comfortable they are, so I'm seriously thinking about bringing them to a local cobbler and have them fitted again. Then it was the hair. I haven't done the hair in more than three years, and since I was working in the morning and then stressing to have lunch and show up for the first showing I had a full 15 minutes to make it. It's ok, but it definitely got a bit too poofy. All the photos are taken at the end of the evening, when the twists had started to unravel and gotten even poofier. The hair was tighter earlier in the day.

The troop itself was easy. I was by myself for the first showings, I saw the very first one. Since it was just me I helped to scan the tickets for all the people going to see Rise of Skywalker. Later in the evening I was joined by Alexandra as senatorial Leia.

Early evening, less poofy hair

We have our scanners ready for the people going to the late show

After we had let the last people in we decided to also have some fun up in the machine room of the cinema, since we had to pass it on or way. I also got to borrow Alexandra's blaster.

And to finish it up we joked about the fact that I had gotten into costume at home and then taken my bike to the cinema. So Leia on a "not-exactly-speedy"-bike.

Still aiming better than stormtroopers

I really enjoyed trooping in TFA Leia again. The new jumpsuit was really comfy and cool, in fact it was quite cold riding my bike in it in sub-zero temperatures. I need to practice the hair and make it better, and fix the boots, but then I'm definitely going to use this costume more in the future.

Photos from AvestaCon

The last weekend in October was AvestaCon, a small local con that was held for the second year. I wad down sick, but I still went. I had promised to be a judge at the Dalarna Cosplay Championships, which is the regional championship that is there to encourage people to try out cosplay, and it was also a chance to take some photos of my costumes. It did end up with me loosing two days of work afterwards though, since I was home with a fever.

I had finally finished my TLJ Leia and wore it as a judge for the cosplay contest. I loved walking around with it and just swosh with my big coat. Photo by: Tom Larsson

Being down sick I spent most of my time in Hogwarts uniform, since it's so comfy and easy to wear. Photo by: Tom Larsson

Another of my very comfortable costumes is Melisandre. It's like wearing a nice and comfy bathrobe, and with my own hair. And when Anne-Sofie had bought an Elsa cosplay, we felt that we needed to take some fun photos.

Ice vs. Fire

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

The location of AvestaCon is gorgeous for dramatic photos. I haven't really decided if this is Melisandre at the wall or at Storm's End

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

The big plan for AvestaCon was to finally assemble our Pokemon superhero team, but we think that it must be cursed, we simply can't all be in costume at the same time. This time our Captain Carp was down sick, but Bellossom Girl, Umbreon and Togepi was there at least.

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

Photo by Peter Bergman
Red Island Media (instagram) , Red Island Media (fb)

Her Universe Bespin dress

This winter Her Universe released a dress inspired by Leia's Bespin gown in The Empire Strikes Back.

This is one of the most gorgeous costumes in the whole Star Wars saga and it's on my dream list, when I feel ready to take on a fullength coat of embroidery.

The Her Universe version of the dress is in one piece, isntead of a tunic with a coat over, with the distinct collar and a few of the embroidered pieces.

I had to have this dress, and as soon as it showed up on emp-shop I ordered it. I also had a  30% off coupon to use since emp had failed with an earlier order.

I have recently had problems with Her Universe sizing. I am normally XL, and on good days L, but the last time I ordered a Her Universe dress in a non-stretch fabric it was a good 15 cm too small in the back, despite being an XL. For this I decided to order a XXL, since I really didn't want it to be too small.

I found the XXL to be clearly too big for me. Now this is a model that's supposed to hang loose, and as such it's not a disaster that it's too big. It makes it really roomy and comfortable, but it's maybe not the most flattering dress for my body. I would have loved a belt to emphasize the waist, just like the original costume.

It has a nice swing and drape to it. I love the embroidered pieces. The most negative thing with the dress is the quality of the fabric. It's not the first time I've felt that Her Universe is using really cheap fabrics, and for the price you pay I think that's a shame. The dress arrived really wrinkled, and it is a thin and flimsy poly jersey fabric. It will be really hard to take out the wrinkles. I will also be weary of using it too much since I don't want to wear it out too quickly.

I wore the dress to work today, and it's a great example of everyday cosplay. My regular style is definitely geared to fun and quirky dresses, so it defintely fits with that. I got really nice compliments from my coworkers, and thehy thought it was both a folkloristic dress and an historically inspired dress, nobody guess it was Star Wars though. I paired it with my black officer boots, that I also use for TLJ Leia.

All in all I really like the dress, and I must be careful not to use it too much. I would recommend using a discout or wait for a sale though, since I'm not sure that the quality of the fabric is worh the full price.

Gorgeous and glorious fabric for TLJ Leia

I haven't done anything about TLJ Leia since the premiere. One of the main issues for me would be to find a new and better coat fabric. Still even if I haven't prioritized it, I have casually browsed from fabric from time to time. And this week I couldn't help myself, I just had to buy this fabric, and when it arrived it was better than I could have dreamt of.

Now actually getting the fabric was a bit of a quest. I saw the fabric on an online store on Tuesday, but decided to wait until payday to buy it. When I then checked up on it again on Sunday it was sold out, and I was devastated. One of my Facebook friends, who knew the store, told me to send an email and ask them though, and so I did.

The fabric was sold out, and they were not going to get more of it, but they did find two remnants of it and offered to put them in the webshop for me. I didn't hesitate but bought it all. There were two remnants one 2,5 m and one 1,6 m, so in total 4,1 m. That will be tricky, for the premiere coat I used around 4,8 meters. I will have to measure very carefully before cutting, and possibly make another mock up with the changes from the premiere coat.

Still I am so happy about this fabric and I can't wait to make a final version of this costume. I hae set a goal to have it finished for Nordsken in early May.

The Last Jedi Premiere post

On the 12th of December the Nordic Base, Nordic Garrison and the Mandalorian Mercs in Sweden were invited to the Swedish gala premiere of The Last Jedi. We were offered 11 places in costume, and I was one of them in my TLJ Leia.

I loved my TLJ Leia, I can definitely say that it's one of my favorite SW costumes ever. It's comfortable, but still very regal, and the hair held up.

We mingled around with the other guests until the film started, and then we watched the film at the IMAX 3D.

I got some nice photos, taken by Anna Vikmanis during the evening.

The only group photo we got was taken at the end though, when our Kylo Ren and the stormtroopers had already gone to change so that they could sit down and see the film.

You can see that the red carpet was actually black this time. 

Before the film TV4 was there and interviewed some of us as well.

I had also been contacted by SVT to be on their morningshow, Morgonstudion, so it was an early morning the day after to be at the studio in Stockholm. Well they let me go in taxi from Uppsala, and their make up people made me look nice and fresh despite it being morning.

My sister snagged this screenshot of me. Of course I wore my Greedo-dress and R2 Pearl necklace, but I still think it was too subtle for people to notice it, the other guest was a bit more obvious in his Star Wars sweater.

In the afternoon SVT:s Kulturnyheterna also made an interview. Now for this interview you have to excuse the state of my wig. I had just seen the film for a second time, and the wig had started to slide back and come undone in the back, I also had a blood sugar drop, but I still managed to be coherent.

The whole first 3 minutes of Kulturnyheterna was about Star Wars.

So I've seen the film twice, and when it comes to the costume there are a couple of things I want to change before I submit it to Rebel Legion, it's all to do with the hair and the jewellery.

The hair in the back consists of two small rolled buns, it's basically the classic cinnamon buns but smaller and put on at the nape of the neck. I also need to trim the lace edge better on the wig.

The earrings curve up behind the ear in a small tendril.

The bracelet needs to be redone, both because it was actually too big, and I want it to be in a shape closer to the film.

I want the one stone ring to be bigger.

As for the film itself, well my spoilerfree view is this:

I like it a lot more than TFA. I think Rian Johnson did a great job and I'm really looking forward to him taking care of a whole trilogy. I've never laughed so much in a SW film, but it never turned into a silly comedy. My main issues are with plot points that were taken over from TFA, and that he simply couldn't ignore. So all in all great director that kept me emotionally invested during the film, I just wish he had had a better material to work with. 

If you are familiar with the old expanded universe you can say that the sequels are like the New Jedi Order book series, with TLJ being the Aaron Allston installements.

TLJ Leia hair

I have managed to style a wig good enough to be happy with it, and this is really the first time that has happened.

This is the wig that I started off with, brown lace front wig. I would actually say that I think it's a bit too long, I think it would be easier to work with a shorter wig and add hairpieces to it. And the stand for my dressform works great to put a wig on as well.

It was quite layered and uneven in the back, so I simply cut off the longest layers.

Then I should have taken progress photos, but I didn't. Basically I put the wig on my own head and added a foam roll to the back. I combed the front hair over the foam roll and took twisted a piece of the hair from the back and rolled it around the foam roll. I did this while wearing the wig. When I was happy with the front I took it of and put it on my wig block and worked the back. For the back I divided the hair into four loops, and held them in place with elastic. I saved some strands of hair so that I could twist them and hide the elastics under them. 

Here is the finished wig.

And here is me wearing the wig, but without trying to hide the wigline.

Now I need to construct a wig box so that I can transport the wig when I leave for Stockholm tomorrow. 

TLJ Leia dress

This is the grey dress Leia wears under the coat.

The dress is made of a poly micro satin, but I used the wrong side out so it's less shiny. It's a great fabric in that it doesn't wrinkle, but it's also dreadful to try and press since it almost refuses to stay pressed.

I wanted the dress to be just big enough to be able to pull it on and off, so I wouldn't need a zipper. For that I used a fairly fitted back, and had the extra material in the front. The dress is based on my standard dress pattern, but I made the skirt an A-line skirt instead of the pencil skirt it is.

I decided to go with a t-shirt sleeve, also to make it easier to pull over the head. The dress is lined in the bodice with the crepe de chine that I failed to dye grey. The lining is attached at the neck opening, but hangs loose as a slip under the dress. The sleeves are unlined.

The belt is a loose belt, with elastic in the back, to keep it tight. It fastens with a hook and bar.

It's threaded through two buttonholes at the side, and then inbetween the lining and main fabric in the back.

TLJ Leia jewellery

I'm at that time in the costume process where I'm too stressed to take photos of my progress. Yesterday I struggle and struggled with the wig until too late, and now I'm too tired to actually get things done. So I took a step back and decided to take photos of the jewellery that I have made.

Worbla is a cosplayers best friend.

The bracelet is a piece of worbla that has also been reinforced with strips of worbla on the back. The strips made it strong enought to hold the shape, but flexible enough to be able to easily take it on and off. I covered the worbla with coppercoloured string, that was attached with wood glue. Then it was painted with acrylic brass paint.

The earrings are semiovals of worbla that I heated and bent into shape. I'm really happy with one of them, but I couldn't get the other one as good. I will probably redo these, or at least one of them. They are attached with a stud that's been glued on and also painted with the same acrylic brass paint.

The ring with two blue stones was bought on etsy from a Canadian 3d printer, there are also metallic copies from China on ebay. For the other ring I didn't have a clear reference until last weekend when someone posted a photo, I couldn't find the reference again though so had to make it from memory. The size might be off, but until there are more available reference photos it will have to do. It's made with fimo clay, similar to sculpy, and painted with acrylic paint in blue and brass.

Overall I am really happy with the jewellery and the brass paint turned out to be really good. I'm surprised that it actually is so shiny and metallic looking even if it's just paint.

Finally I couldn't help myself, so after having struggled to get the wig into a reasonable shape I wanted to do a full costume test. So ignore my bleary face, and the frizzy wig, but I am getting there.

TLJ Leia coat is finished (almost)

Over the weekend I finished the coat, except for hemming it. I started on Saturday, but then I was thwarted by the fact that I realized that I wouldn't be happy with the fabric I had for a lining, it was both too light grey and to flimsy. I needed another fabric. There are no fabric stores in my town and the one in the closest neighbouring town is closed on Saturdays. I wouldn't let that stop me though. I searched the two op-shops for anything that could work, but my hope of finding black taffeta curtains were squashed in a sea of red. There were just Christmas stuff everywhere. In the end I found two sets of 100% cotton satin bedsheets in white, and even if they were expensive at least they were marked down for Black Friday. Then it was off to the paint store, where they have a small sortiment of textile dyes, and I got all the black dye packages they had (4) for dyeing by hand and not in a machine. I spent the afternoon cutting up the sheets and putting them in a dye bath, I normally just put all the fabric in the dye bath, but I suspected that I had too much fabric and not enough dye so I wanted to just put enough fabric in the dye bath. I ended up with a dark grey fabric with a slight sheen to it, so I was pretty satisfied. I was also really behind my original time plan.

I used my coat pattern, and in the end the coat did go together really well. It's a simple design, with basically just four pieces. Wool and cottons are such easy fabrics to work with as well, you can make them do almost anything you want just with some steam and pressure. I did find the main fabric through etsy. Ever since I started thinking about doing this costume I have searched really wide on both etsy and ebay. This fabric showed up when I searched for grey wool. It's a black or very dark navy wool, with a chainmail pattern in grey yarns over it. The pattern and texture is great, but the fabric is a bit too soft and not shiny enough to be perfect. I am very satisfied with it though.

I sewed the lining the same way. In order to help the stand up collar I added fusible interfacing to the collar part, and down to the bust, on the inside of the lining. I then sewed the lining and outer fabric together at the neck and front by hand.

The lining photographs quite brown, but it is grey. This is the part with the interfacing.

On Sunday I continued with the sleeves. In order to make them more structured I also added fusible interfacing to the straight seams of the sleeves.

If you wonder why I have added the interfacing even out in the seam allowance it's because I don't trust it to stay fused to the fabric, so I wanted to sew it in place as well. I baglined the sleeves and gave them a good press before sewing them to the coat. I sewed the sleeves to both the coat fabric and lining, and then used the lining of the sleeve to cover the seam.

With that the coat is done. I need to hem it, and I want to wait with that until I have finished the underdress. All in all I really love this coat already. Since it's based on a mid 16th century loose gown

I definitely need to make one of those for myself. I guess with the older Leia I finally have a character that I can cosplay, with a body similar to my own. Both with this one, and the general Leia costume from TFA, it's obvious that the costumes are made to accomodate a fairly short and curvy person. The proportions and where the pieces emphasize some parts and hides some part of the body simply makes me feel that they flatter me and that isn't something I'm used to when it comes to cosplay costumes.

Now I need to start on the underdress, and I'm actually more worried about that. I have more fabric to make mistakes, but the fabric that I have will make every mistake clearly visible, and I don't have that much fabric.

The Last Jedi Leia coat pattern

I finished the pattern for the Leia coat, and even if I didn't take a lot of photos of the process I will share what I did. It also shows how I usually work when I make my patterns.

I cut up my first mock-up. I cut it off at the hips, since it's not fitted below the hips it felt a waste of fabric to work on a full-length version, when I only needed to fit it on the upper body. I also cut the back piece in half, since I had discovered that there was a center back seam.

On this photo the left side looks smoother and better fitted than the right. That is because I start working on both sides, by pinning and repinning the pieces to each other. Once I feel that one side is starting to look better than the other I concentrate on that side and don't work on both sides. I don't take it off though, since I still need the other side so I can hang the mock up on my dress form and on myself.

This stage is a lot of testing. Once I'm happy with what it looks like on the dress form I make sure to test it on myself. The dress form is a great help, but it also has an idealized shape, while I have lumps and bumps and soft flesh that makes me less than ideal.

Most of the shaping was done on the back seam, I also cut the shoulder seam shorter, which make the armscye larger than the first version.

Then it was on to the sleeves. The sleeves were made through trial and error. I simply started with two large square pieces of fabric that I sewed together to create what looked like an oversized pillow cover, with two open sides. Then I folded more and more fabric away, and cut off the excess until it had a shape that I liked.

The last thing I did was to sew the sleeve to the bodice to make sure it all fit together.

back of the mock up

Front of the mock up

The fabric that I'm using is a little bit too flimsy to hold the shape of the sleeve. I will try to make the sleeve with just the main fabric, but I am prepared to do some kind of reinforcing to make it stiffer. I won't know until I have started working on the actual fabric though.

While the mock up is still on the dress form I make sure to write all notes I will need. The most important is of course which piece it is, and how much seam allowance I have used. I also make marks where the pattern pieces should join up.

After I have made all the markings I need on the mock up I cut it up, I do that by simply cutting the seams. During the work I have usually changed the seam allowances while adjusting the fit, by cutting at the seamline I know it will all go together and I can then add my own seam allowance when cutting the main fabric.

These are my final pattern pieces. Top left - back piece, top right - front piece, bottom left - back sleeve, bottom right - front sleeve.

Here is also a close up of the sleeve pieces. They should be joined at the bottom and where they face each other.