Katniss Everdeen : Wedding Dress

SERIES: The Hunger Games "Catching Fire"

DATE COMPLETED: April 2015

AWARDS: 2nd Place in "Movies & Television" - 2015 Crown Championships of Cosplay at C2E2

Runner up in Master Craftsmanship - Anime Central 2015

NOTES: This dress was something I had been wanting to do for a long time. During the time when I was making my senior thesis, I basically had Catching Fire playing on a loop in the background. The more I looked at Katniss' wedding dress, the more I fell in love with it. After months & months of researching & deliberation, I finally decided why not give it a shot.

If I could describe this dress in one or two words, it would be "A lot". It was a lot of fabric, a lot of time and a lot of money. ^^;; I wanted to keep the materials as close to the original as possible, so for the skirt I used silk organza and topped it with hundreds of yards of ribbon & chiffon. The chiffon came in 90 yard rolls that I used a ruffler foot to make tiny, neat pleats. I had a deep love-hate relationship with my ruffler foot (but I think I'll leave all that for the blog post I'll be making about it). Once the rolls were pleated, I ironed them flat & used spray starch to keep them crisp. After sewing all the ribbon & chiffon onto the organza, I added 5" horse hair braid to the hem to give it extra volume. I wanted this dress to be massive!!

The petticoat is a three-hoop petticoat that I purchased & added 3 layers of tulle on top of. The underskirt is made out of satin that I draped the pattern for. It has french seams, baby hem & an invisible zipper. Once I was pleased with the volume of the petticoat, I draped the outer skirt fabric on top. This was honestly the hardest part for me because there is so much going on in Katniss' skirt. It was really hard to break down how they did it & it looks different in each picture. After each drape I ended up reshaping the skirt about 3 or 4 times until I had a shape that somewhat resembles the movie. :P The entire thing was hand-sewn to the underskirt using silamide (the ONLY thread I use for hand-sewing. Its god-tier IMHO & has never let me down).

The corset pattern was draped & the finished corset has three layers (outer satin, middle canvas, inside lining). I used spiral steel boning & hand-sewed the corset shut using bias tape. Originally I was going to use a separating zipper (for accuracy & ease), but I soon found out that was a terrible idea when it busted open during the final fitting. >.< I added grommets instead at the last minute & painted them white. I think it was a blessing in disguise because it looked nicer & felt more secure in the end. Once it was finished I hand-sewed feathers all over the corset.

The metal cage (as they liked to call it in the film BTS) was made out of small sections of manipulated flat aluminum wire hot glued together. Once dried, I added epoxy & gorilla glue for extra support. It was spray painted white & over 3000 crystals were glued on top using E600 glue & tweezers.

♡ ✧˖° To get a closer look, check out my progress photos & behind the scenes video! ✧˖° ♡

This dress is currently FOR SALE. For measurements & pricing, please contact me at bonkyubombgirl@gmail.com

Photos by David Ngo & Matthew Sperzel Photography