You may have read a few months back that I made an
Elsa dress for my friend's daughter. As it turns out, an Elsa dress for a 5 year old doesn't require much fabric, so I happened to have a whole lot left over. As Halloween approached, I couldn't resist the temptation to make my own grown up version of the costume for Halloween. Of course, when I discussed this with my friends, they too wanted in on the fun. The plan was made, flights were booked, and suddenly my news feed started filling up with articles like
this one from USA today, admonishing slutty girls from slutting up beloved children's characters. Well, sorry Disney, if you didn't want us to objectify ourselves and this may not have been the best role model for 3 year olds.
Given the uproar over the slutfication of Elsa, I certainly didn't expect to get to the fabric store and find
Simplicity 1553, a pattern produced by Disney itself to make the wholesome princesses of the past into little hoes. Apparently Belle and Cinderella are fair game. We didn't expect much of them anyway.
So, armed with a pattern and my leftover fabric, I made what was essentially a teal sequined corset, lined with teal satin. The corset was supposed to lace up the back, but even
I had to draw the line somewhere. So, I inserted a separating zipper down the back of my fully lined, fully boned, princess corset. I will note that I added 2 inches of length to the pattern in the hopes of a more Elsa-eque silhouette. Unfortunately, I'm so long waisted that this basically just made it reach my belly button.
Elsa's skirt, despite what I did for the ch
ild version, is not a full, gathered number like past princesses. Instead she's in a sleek fitted little number with a slit up to there. I couldn't see myself waltzing into a halloween party in a full length gown, so I patterned out a skirt I already had in my closet that fit pretty well with curved seams down the sides to make fitted silhouette work on my big-ol-butt. Finally, I found a sparkly piece of chiffon on the clearance rack at Joanns. I trimmed it to about 50 inches, cut a bit of a cape-shaped curve in it, and gathered it at the top. I hand stitched the "hook" side of some sew-in white velcro to the cape, and the "loop" side to the inside top edge of the corset so that it could come off for washing.
Olaf was a team effort, as my friend Melissa created a felt Olaf face and glued it on a white beanie, added three 2" black pom-poms on a white t-shirt. I used my real tutu tutorial (exact same length, believe it or not, I just changed the waist measurement) to create a snowman silhouette.
For Anna's dress I had very ambitious plans involving an equally offensive Simplicy pattern, but ran out of time. So, a blue dress, a teal t-shirt, and a black tank top were pulled from my friend Beth's closet (and a last minute shopping trip in downtown Madison). I zipped up a 2-seam caplet from a yard of stretch velvet and we were off.
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