Coat of Doom Finale

A while back I created the top part of Alice's coat. I'm not yet finished with her coat because what is left is the bottom piece. This is going to be very tricky to recreate the coat from two pieces into one whole one (pictured above). I have several methods I'm going to apply.



First off, the connecting point of the two coat pieces will be Alice's red belt. The bottom piece will be actually connected to said belt, and the top piece will be tucked under it. This is the mechanics for it; simple, right?

So I sewed the bottom coat the same way I did the top part of the coat. I used the same heavy bottom weight fabric for it, and heavy layer of tulle between the outer and lining pieces. The tulle would give the coat volume. Now in order to make the coat curl, and stand out on its own instead of being flat against my body I need to employ use of boning. The kind of boning I used was the simple plastic kind, not metal. I should add that boning is used in all sorts of fancy dresses and gowns because it helps garments have a rigid shape (such as boning inside a corset which you can see here as all those lines running up and down). In my case I am using the boning to give the coat a more round shape. For the large red belt I used the same materials that I did for the other belts in her costume. However this belt, both the top and bottom belts of the lower coat piece, need what are called "eyelets." All belts have eyelets which are metal holes. These holes are used for closing belts and what have you. The middle of her belt has a gold insignia which I made out of wonderflex and spray painted gold. Moving along the front of the coat part has a pink pattern that goes along the edges. This pattern was created by use of pink bias tape. The back of her coat also has a similar pattern.

Great reference picture of the back of her coat.

So after I finished the bottom coat piece I had to attach it to the top. This was not an easy task at all, and was actually the most difficult to accomplish. What I had to use was two pair of magnetized clasps at the area of the belt underneath where my arms are. I also used velcro fasteners for the back to ensure that the back of the top coat piece was secured under the belt. Surprisingly it worked well enough to withstand two wearings. I think I'm in the clear!!

This is Alice with all the pieces finished (minus contacts on)! Hooray!