Padme Amidala Padme's Water Gown

Anyone interested in doing this Dress?

After seeing the dress inside the book "The Making of Revenge of the Sith", I fell in love with it and deems it doneable if I go the Semi-Ghetto way (that means I use cheaper substitude materials and concentrate more on hand-making/modifying the fabrics to look more like the original )

For a start, here's Maggie's page one it.

Ps: I'm also starting to check out the Episode 3 Dresses (Spoilers) about this dress and others.


sg edit -- changed the thread title, as it's no longer a spoiler.
S_S edit: just unlocking

 

*cries* Seriously, my eyes are watery after seeing the picture of the village during her funeral. And seeing her being prepped in a casket....*cries more*

It's a beautiful gown, and I'd love to do it. But then I'd be breaking a promise to myself that I made a few months ago: No Padme Episode III costumes.

I'd love to see kell do this!

 

Oh my, why would anyone make such a promess?

Then again, I know it will feel really weird for me anyway to see a walking person wearing that dress.

 

It's beautiful. Very tempting Maybe I'll put it on my 'eventually I want to make this' list.. lol

 

Man I'd love to do that costume... I think it may be my favourite ep3 one.

Hehe, Zombie Padme.

 

Kell, I think you could pull it off. I'd LOVE to see you do it.

 

I love this dress and I was just about to look and see if there was a thread on it, i think it would be cool to show up in this dress with pale make up and all.

 

That would look creepy, FormerQueen, but cool. lol

 

So any recommandation on what can be used under all those Sequins for the Cape/Cloak? Or any idea what could be the cloth color?

Think may need something that can be Hand "Fake Pleated".

 

In the ROTS souvenir guide, Trisha Biggar describes the process and materials used for the water gown, and under all the sequins the cape/cloak is a hand-painted devore velvet. The underdress is dyed and BOILED chiffon--yes, boiled, to make the fabric as thin as spiderweb silk before pleating.

 

I'm already collecting matierals to make this (shh, it's supposed to be a secret) but just can't figure out how to make the cloak wavy. I thought about weaving it between dowels while it's still wet and letting it dry, but I'm afraid that the weight of it will straighten it out again after it's dried. Suggestions?

 

to me, doing this dress wouldnt seem practical and i'll tell you why:

By the way it lays, you can tell its intended to be worn lying down. Of course, Trisha knew that thats what it was intended for. To me, you wouldnt be able to capture half the effect of that dress if you wore it standing up.

however, It would make a killer nightgown. Im digging the material.

 

This is definitely the one I am most anxious to see and make.

I can understand why there aren't a lot of pictures of this out. Just like the EP 2 wedding dress, this is kind of the 'surprise' to the story. Yes, I will be bawling all through the movie everytime I see it.

I like Maggie's commentary on how the visual & plot line juxtaposition of the characters works & I LOVE how it is taken the step further to the character's costumes.

We are all familiar with Darth Vader and his costume's material's and components. The water dress seems to be the antithesis of all that is Vader.

& btw re: Leia's comment in EP VI.........she responds to Luke that what she remembers of her mother are "feelings mostly" which can be explained by latent Jedi powers which she is just coming to understand.

& taken a step further, what Ol' Ben Kenobi explains to Luke about his father's "death" also makes perfect sense --- from a costuming point of view.



Fruma Sarah! Fruma Sarah!

 

I would LOVE to see Kell do this costume! I'm thinking about it... I just love the way that it looks... but I might do it for a doll costume... I don't know, I think I'm going to have to see the movie first.

~Laura

 

I've loved this costume from Day one when we saw it on the dressform and weren't even sure if it was Padme's. Now seeing it all together with the hair and all makes me love it even more. But I do have to admit it might be a little odd to walk around in funeral attire.

My take on the underdress is that it is indeed done with the fortuny fake pleating method (which does incorporate boiling the fabric). I think a wonderful light silk would pleat beautifully and give the soft, thin delicate look that the dress has, and flows well into the whole water theme. (For some reason the underdress of this gown reminds me so much of the AOTC Tatooine "Lars Homestead Poncho" gown underdress. The color, the thin, delicate material, and the pleating. )

I'm so jazzed to hear that the velvet is painted, since that is what my initial thought was for how I would go about recreating this dress. Either by using air brush (which gives a nice light airy color to the fabric without getting all "crusty" and thick, would be great for creating the wave like pattern.) They also now carry fabric paint in cans that spray--(in Joann's they are found near the dye) and I think you could use those as well to creat the wave pattern).

You could always hand paint the design using a paint with fabric medium to reduce the crustiness But I think the pattern would be easier to control and much more fluid if it were done with an air backed paint process. Just MHO.

The sequins appear to me as irridescent AB blue sequins, not faceted, and should be easy enough to find.

 

Ferd what is the FOrtuney Fake method? This was a secret costume for me too lol.

I alreday have all my sequins and fabrics, but was not looking forward to pleating the underdress. I hope to have this done for Dragon Con

 

Benae, this page will walk you through making faux Fortuny pleated fabric.

 

> under all the sequins the cape/cloak is a hand-painted devore velvet

So the Cape/Cloak isn't pleated at all but rather the "pattern" seen on it as a result of the paintjob and the way the sequins are sew on? Okay....that make the job even harder.... But that will explain why the sequins can hold on to the cloth better.

> The underdress is dyed and BOILED chiffon--yes, boiled, to make the fabric as thin as spiderweb silk before pleating.

It was CHIFFON? Darn! I just found a place selling White Silk Chiffon (a bit wrinkled actually) for a good low price but now too late to change. I don't mind doing fortuny fake pleating method again 3am in the morning, except this time at both at the dyeing and drying level (I only did it at the air-drying level cause my cloth is already wrinkled).

ThePariah thanks for the tip-off! Finally some feedbacks on the construction of the dress.


> The sequins appear to me as irridescent AB blue sequins, not faceted

Ferd, pardon my lack of knowledge but what is not faceted?

I checked out the shops here and gonna use a series of different strain/stringed sequins for my pocket sake. Found the one that might be prefect as it's already sew in a "wave" pattern but it cost a lot so got to combine it with other cheaper ones.


Benae_Quee, don't worry about doing fortuny fake pleating as it's not that difficult. According to the instruction, it will work with Polyester too. I did it 3am on the morning with the railing of the common corridor and a rubber band plus I did entirely air-drying! And my job was made easier cause my cloth was already wrinkled. But the color to be used for the dye job make take a bit of time to get and lots of experimentation. I wish Dylon has a color mix recommandation chart like RITS and I got more money to spare.

 

I was looking at the bodice area and it looks like a very tight pleat just to the waist, and then a loose pleat for the bottom of the dress. The jewel looks like a plain round blue jewel, but that might not have been finished when the shot was taken lol (seems to simple to me). The 'waves' look look like they were etched in and then the whole thing was painted with blues and then sequins attached to the areas with velvet pile. The sequins look like they were attached to ribbons and then to the dress. I've been studying this dress every day (my boss caught me at work lol) and it's always revealing new things to me. I wont start it though until I get better pictures

 

I relaly don't think it's chiffon. I have a lot of silk chiffon, and it's much wrinklier.

I don't think it's georgette as well, especially is boiling is a method used (I have a few silk georgette pieces and when washed they too crinkle, even when they weren't to begin wiht.

The under gown just looks like a very fine silk, I can't quite put my finger on what I'm specifically thinking of, but it's also quite dull, which is probably a combination of dyeing and pleating (the fabric would take a fair bit of beathing.)

As for the cloak, one can also paint dye. I'd probably recommend it if you are using "silk" velvet (rayon pile silk backing, if it's devore, this is the most likely combination) as the rayon with grip the dye quite well. Same with cotton velvet/velveteen,

If the fabric is damp to start with you get very soft blending possible (which I don't think we are seeing here) but if dry and you use a fairly high concentration of dye then you should be able to get soft definition without blurring.

If all you can find is a man-made fibre velvet, then you can use watered down acrylics. I mix mine with water then strain it through cloth to make sure there are no bits of solid paint left which can cause funny colour things happening.
I've used this on fake fur and fake hair with great success. It actually really grips onto acrylic fabrics... funnily enough
You can paint the watered down stff on or use a spray bottle.

 

Velvet huh? I started a doll version and found organza ribbon is the right weight for that scale (I hand dyed it in three different shades of blue). But for a full scale, perhaps 1-2inch white velvet ribbon (or light blue) could be dyed and tacked down in the wavy pattern. And upon further inspection of the closeups Maggie has posted on Padawan's Guide, it looks like beads are used on the most part of the cloak and flat sequins are used only on the collar and the three strips that hang down on either side. Also, had anyone "confirmed" the "symbol" on her belly? It only looks like a moon shape (perhaps from that "moongoddess theme" from her veranda on Coruscant?) rather than her fleur de lys symbol.

[image=http://www.geocities.com/starlamedra5/deadpadme5.jpg] [image=http://www.geocities.com/starlamedra5/deadpadme6.jpg]

 

JediMistress, you are my saver! Why didn't I think of using Velvet Ribbons to partially replace velvet for the Cloak and get that wavy effects even more?

Will see what I can do about the cloak this week.

 

If you check out the iFilm ROTS documentaries, one of them is on costuming and has a section on the water dress, including some blurry but very close-up shots. The sequins look unfaceted and pearly.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2634535

 

Ok I've decided to do this gown for my doll...I have found the most stunning dark blue velvet !!! I'm so proud, it's a velvet that has waves INTO the fabric...It's hard to explain exactly though... but those little waves will help me A LOT to paint those colored waves all over the cape.

I also have bought dark aquatic green silk, Though there is something I can't figure out, I need your help folks.

If I crinkle the fabric and THEN do the dye-fading-to-blue..the crinkle will be compltely gone since the Crinkle disapear once wet again.

Should I crinkle the fabric, Sew the dress, and then dye it, and then re-crinkle it ?

Anthony

 

That is gorgeous! The pics are so sad I think that will probably be my next costume, after I finish my Arwen Mourning Gown- which is going to take forever