Fixing Sakura

This year our new costumes (We try to add a new costume every once a year.) was Sakura and Syaoron from Tsubasa. Our costumes were very well made (Minus the buttons that just would not stay sewn, but that's an easy fix for me) After looking through pictures that were taken I've noticed a few things that bugged me. 

Note: I hate how I look in these pictures! The short wig makes my face look bloated but I'll be posting them anyway to give you an idea how what is wrong and what I'm going to fix since I have time on my hands. It is NOT the people who took the pictures fault. I just don't look good with that wig on. Plus I need to work on my angles better when posing, I look bored. 

Issues

1.) The skirt looked way too flat! 

The skirts all bunched together and looked very bad flat and limp. I thought not using the hoop skirt would help keep the celestial look like Hanfus are supposed to have. But it really looked bad in pictures. 

Did I mention I hate how short my wig is? YUCK!

The Fix 

Sorry for the mess. I took these pictures on a whim and haven't cleaned up yet. 

The skirt looks blah! Too limp and flat.

Much better! It gives it a nice A-line shape. But unlike my Sharon cosplay this fabric is thin and shows the bones of the hoop skirt so I'm going to have to use my new petticoat I'm making for Caterina on top of it so you cannot see the lines. 

2.) The costume is in pieces!

This kills me. Each part isn't connected to on another which ended up doing this if I didn't fix it every five minutes...

(See my ribbon? I'm so proud of that!)

The three parts (Upper shirt, corset waist piece and skirt kept popping out. It was very bothersome. Made the "Hey can I have your picture?" pictures look bad too. 

The Fix

In order to fix this and stop it from happening the only thing I can do is connect two pieces together to keep them from separating and having the skirt budge out. I'm going to try and sew the two outer pieces together, the top and corset so they wont push through and show the skirt. I'm going to wait until I can get my dress form so it doesn't wind up being too tight. This costume was literary made to fit me like a glove. I should have added a few extra cm just in case but forgot to. Luckily I've lost weight since I've started working so I'm hoping that and sewing the pieces together will stop that from happening. I have to say it ruined my mood by it happening so often. I tend to get grumpy and stressed easily during cons when my costumes act up so I want to try and prevent that. 

The best thing about Sakura's long skirt is it is made out of satin. Why? It dragged on the ground a LOT. Plus rude people stepped on it even through they saw it on the floor. It did get dirty but so far has easily washed out. The thread seems to be the only noticeable dirty spots on the whole thing! I'm impressed and think I'll use satin for lining when I create Seth's costume....which is posted below.

Seth has a HUGE train. It's bound to get dirty! But I can't wait to make it~

Which leads me to my next post. Choosing Seth's costume. This post will be posted in a bit after I find some good examples of her outfits!

(I'm in a cosplay mood tonight!)