Alice in Wonderland - Cosplay Tutorial
So well done if you correctly guessed Alice in Wonderland as my secret cosplay! My mum volunteers for the story museum in Oxford and has got me starting there, on Saturday 4th July was “Alice’s Day” - a day celebrating all things Alice in Wonderland. This year was the 150th anniversary of the story and so they were looking to have 150 Alices to commemorate. My mum said we should both dress up but I made it plain that if I were to do that, I’d want to make a costume and make it well - its a cosplay I’ve wanted to do for a while anyway and so it wouldn’t be a one-wear costume. Surprisingly she agreed to pay for most of it seeing as I have no money at all.
There were a few pieces and materials I already owned but the costume cost £45. And it didn’t turn out too badly!
It’s not 100% accurate but it was the best I could get in the short time I had. And its pretty close! I want to get a bigger or fuller petticoat to make the skirt go out further like hers does in the movie (although it is a cartoon so I probably can’t get it exactly like it!). The biggest inaccuracy is probably the sleeves, but as they were included in the pattern and I didn’t have much time, I didn’t want to risk trying sleeves from a different pattern that would be more accurate. The sleeves are more similar to the Disney Parks Alice dress than the original 1951 movie but that’s just me being picky. I’m really happy with it and will probably make a few minor improvements now I have the time.
Enough of me rambling about the outcome, here’s how I made it...
(sidenote: The lengths stated below are the fabric amounts I needed for my dress according to my size - Size 8-10 with a 26″ (66cm) waist)
3 metres of blue cotton - For the skirt you’ll need a wide fabric, at least 60″ (152cm). I ended up buying a polycotton sheeting fabric with 100″ (254cm) width, so essentially I bought 3mx2.5m which is kinda insane XD My fabric is lighter than that of the movie but is probably closer to the colour of the Disney Parks Alice dress.
2 metres of white cotton - Any width. Just because I knew the seller and it was cheap I bought white polycotton which is a little bit see-through, so if I have time in future i might remake it with a thicker fabric.
1-2 metres of lining fabric - This is only to line the bodice and so won’t need as much as the blue cotton. I completely forgot to buy any lining fabric and only realised when it was too late. Luckily I found some leftover white satin from a previous cosplay that I used for lining.
1/2 metre of black cotton - Any width. I used scraps from some cotton I already had. A fat quarter of fabric should be enough for the hair bow.
White tights - these can be bought on ebay for around £2-3.
Black Mary Jane shoes - I already owned some that work well enough.
Petticoat - I bought the first, cheapest I could find on ebay and so it probably isn’t the best I could have bought. I’ll either buy another of the same to wear underneath the one I have, or just buy a better one entirely.
(Excuse the absolute mess behind it)
Blonde wig - An important thing to do is to make sure that its a shade of blonde that will suit you. I’ve never cosplayed a blonde character before and so had no idea. The general rule is to make sure it suits your skin and eye colour - light eyes/complexion, light blonde, dark eyes/complexion, darker blonde etc. As I’m pale and have light eyes, a light gold blonde was fine for me.
McCalls pattern M4948 - For the bodice only.
You also need a lot of newspaper to draft patterns with!
This doesn’t require much instruction as it’s simply following the McCalls pattern shown above.
Just a warning about the pattern: I’m not sure if I did something wrong, but my bodice ended up being about 2cm smaller at the waist than the actual garment measurements stated on the pattern. I ended up taking it out by 0.5cm at each side seam so the seam allowance was only 1cm which made it a lot better and comfortable. Again, I have no idea if or how I went wrong there but proceed with caution. The closer it is to your waist measurement, the better.
The sleeves provided in the pattern are not accurate to the 1951 movie and so I’d recommend perhaps trying the puff sleeve pattern that comes from Simplicity 2817 (Snow White/Cinderella pattern) which appears more accurate. I was going to try this, but decided to stick with the sleeves that went with the bodice pattern so it would definitely work with no issues.
Sew in the zip on a 1.5cm seam allowance, leaving the bottom 1.5cm or so unsewn (for where the skirt will be sewn to the bodice). There will be a lot leftover - this is for the skirt.
I ended up doing this last as I wasn’t sure if I had time and the priority was at least completing the dress and apron.
I traced a pattern from an online tutorial onto paper and cut it out, it looked like this:
You need to cut 4 pieces from this, two for each side of the collar. Sew two pieces together and leave a gap so you can turn it inside out. Then sew it to the neckline of your dress and press.
This pattern I cut out was too big for the dress, in my opinion. So I sewed a bigger seam allowance (about 3cm) so it was smaller and a better size for the dress. It turned out well, although isn’t very accurate to the movie.
Click here for the tutorial used.
Upon looking around for some tutorials on making an Alice costume, I came across melindascostumes’ blog post about making her costume. She used a circle skirt for the dress, which in comparison to a picture of a dress made with the M4948 pattern, looked much fuller (though this was in part due to the fact that she used a petticoat and the pattern-made skirt did not). So I decided to do the same, which was a bit of a risk considering my short time to be able to complete the costume.
I drafted a circle skirt pattern for a length of around 28″ (70cm), then added about 5 extra centimetres on just to be on the safe side - better to be too long than too short, right? I was unsure how long to make it as I knew the skirt was just below the knee but would have a petticoat that would shorten the length. I ended up taking at least 10cm off when hemming the skirt. I’d recommend between 24-28″ (61-70cm) length from the waist.
(The line is where I originally drew out the pattern before I decided to add some length for safety)
Before sewing in the lining on the bodice I pinned the bodice to the skirt. As the circle skirt dress tutorial I was using stated, if the bodice was too big for the skirt, then the bodice needed to be taken in seeing as the waist was measured perfectly to the waist. My issue was the skirt was too big for the waist. Cue panicking.
It was easily fixed, I sewed the lined bodice to the skirt, cut a slit down the circle skirt the same as the zip and folded the fabric over to sew in the zip. And it fit fine! I really have no idea what happened there, maybe I measured myself wrong. But it was probably a good thing that the skirt was too big as it meant there was fabric to spare to fold over for the zip placement.
This is how it looked, before hemming, with the petticoat. Take care when hemming a circle skirt, it can be tricky!
I drafted this pattern with the help of the apron pattern for M4948. The pattern piece for M4948 I used to get the right neckline and strap placement, as well as the waist line. For the lower apron I used my circle skirt pattern. So the apron was probably just over half a circle.
The lines show where the M4948 apron pattern is in comparison.
Cut both these pattern pieces on the fold - I haven’t included a picture of the part of the strap that went round my neck. I found that the pointed shoulder parts of the apron did fall down to over my shoulders thanks to the looseness around the neck, so I may sew snap fasteners onto the shoulders of the dress or something like that to keep it in place. I may shorten the apron as it does slip down almost as low as the skirt.
For the waistband I measured out my waist measurement and added around an inch. I made 2x wider than needed and folded it in half, sewed it and turned it inside out. Then I pressed it to make it flat. I added two snap fastenings. The waistband was separate from the apron but I will probably sew it on - after wearing it for a day the apron did fall down and so having the waistband attached may help.
The reason the waistband wasn’t attached and is only long enough for my waist is because of the ginormous bow Alice has on the back of the apron. There was no way I could make it that big by having a tie-up apron. Or maybe there is, but I had little time to think. So instead I made a bow from a rectangle of fabric with two pieces of fabric tied around it and hanging down, then attached snap fasteners so it could be put onto the waistband. Cheating, I know, but it works!
The tie-around pieces of fabric for the bow just don’t look right to me yet look right to me but I’m working on it. I’d love to make an even bigger bow too XD
This was made from a rectangle of fabric attached to a black hairband.
Costume don! I hope this walkthrough made sense and is of any help. Let me know if you have many questions!
This costume took three days to make, one of the days being a solid 12 hours of working as it was the last day I had to finish it...and typically I woke up at 2pm!!
This is the finished costume:
My mum and I were assigned to steward a morning event where people could come and ask the caterpillar for advice. It was awesome to watch - the actress playing the caterpillar was amazing and many people asked for serious advice! I eventually got the courage to act a little as Alice and the caterpillar and I began to interact in character. I get very self conscious when acting in character but I’m glad I did it, even if it was mostly to the caterpillar and not so much to visitors.
The White Rabbit dropped in for a visit:
And this is one of the first photos my mum took, I love it!
I even got photographed by BBC Radio Oxford (and featured in The Daily Telegraph and on the Oxford Mail website!). Another press photographer photographed me but I have no idea what newspaper for and haven’t been spotted yet so...look out!
I got interviewed for Dutch TV as well (who were rather confused when I acted in character...) so look out for me, Dutch friends! XD
Thanks for reading I hope I helped!
