Outfit 69 | Alicent Hightower

Halloween this year drew me to make one of Alicent's dresses from House of the Dragon. The costuming in this show is gorgeous. I could wax poetic about all the dragon-themed motifs worked into Rhaenyra's looks alone. Taking inspiration costume designers Jany Temime and Caroline McCall, I decided to make a reproduction (I will admit, ambitious for my first costume piece).

The first challenge: fabric and materials selection.  The fabric on the source dress is less scale than the performance fabric I selected and more-window-pane pattern, but this is the best I could find on the short time frame I self-imposed. It captures the sheen and color of the dress and the scales are an extra nod to dragons so, it works. My solution for the jewelry embellishment on the front? A waist-belt which I took apart with pliers and arranged then hand-sewed to the dress.

The second challenge: pattern mixing and customization. Pattern customization is something I want to incorporate more into my projects, and this was a good baby-step. I pieced two sleeves together from different patterns to accomplish the correct bell shape of the sleeve while keeping the sleeve cap to attach to the bodice, there was a little geometry involved, but I prevailed. The main dress is McCall's M8424, and the sleeve is from Simplicity SS9089H5.

The third challenge: construction.  I have never worked with a vinyl fabric before, but this was the least difficult part of construction. While it was heavier than I was used to (especially towards the end, as the sleeves alone require multiple yards of fabric) it was easy to work with in my machine with a walking foot. One of the sleeves gave me the hardest time, I sewed the lining inside out first and after painstakingly ripping the seams and reassembling, I realized I attached the entire sleeve backwards onto the dress. This was fortunately my biggest flub during construction. Everything else just took patience & time. 

I started cutting October 12th and finished in time for Halloween. Next time I tackle a project like this, I'll gift myself a little extra time. I am so proud of this first attempt at costume construction, now I know I can do it!