Pretty in pink: Ivy's dress and hat

Photographer Anniina Väisänen

It seems that is has been long enough from the WCS preliminaries, or more precisely from the two months of continuous work last summer; I can look at the photos of the costume construction without flashback. So I decided to put together a post from the making of Ivy’s get-up.


The fabrics I used for Ivy’s dress are pale pink polyester satin and lilac cotton satin. After I started to gather the materials in December 2010, I soon realized that finding the right shade of pink would be most certainly impossible. After three months I settled to a pink that wasn’t as rich as in the reference but close enough. The lining is actually the same fabric I used on the gold trimmings. It’s just inside out. And it’s the actually the same as Yoshimitsu’s vest lining, which is two –sided taffeta.


Ivy’s peculiar tailcoat-corset combination was first on my list when I started to draw patterns for the costumes. I can’t recall have I ever struggled with lining as much as I did with it. I had to make few chances to my original plans with having a zipper on the side and making a fake lacing on the back. This was all because of the misguiding two layered look of the garment. The piece of clothing I made is one-piece with lacing on the back and plastic boning on the seams.


There is also boning in the body I’m wearing under the dress. The lace front, which I constructed from tulle and tiny pieces of black lace, is sewn on the body. The body is there to give some piece of mind, since the cut of the dress is rather…high. No flashing because no visible panties. Yes, that’s really a weird reasoning, but somehow makes sense. And I was wearing the tights under to body… Enough with that, every girl cosplayer knows what I’m talking about.



Most time-consuming sewing project along side dress was the rose embroideries, which decorate Ivy’s stockings and veil. The roses took rather long to complete. I could only blame myself, because after trashing the ideas of drawing the figures on the violet stockings with markers, embroidering them on a piece of tulle was next on my list. The other problem with the roses was to attach them to the stockings. Sewing them on didn’t work, because the stockings naturally stretch, but the roses didn’t. Then I realized to slip them between the two stockings that I was wearing! In the morning of the preliminaries! Yay!


I don’t know have I ever mentioned that I love making hats. I do, so Ivy’s cocktail hat was a pleasant task. The hat is made from the same fabric as the dress. The shape is created by cutting petals from sheet foam. I decided to trim the petals with black piping. The black veil I purchased from Belle Modeste. To prevent the hat from falling off my head, I attached it to my wig with clear fishing line.

Photographer Miika Ojamo

I have no idea where I got the stockings. I think I bought about seven pairs of tights before finding suitable ones. The fishnets are probably from Cybershop.