Making Makoto’s Black Dress

This last weekend I went to the Sailor Moon Silver Millennium Masquerade Ball! It was an event in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Sailor Moon, with formal costumes, drinks, dancing, and moonlight. We enjoyed the event very much. But what does someone wear to something like this? Well…

I wanted to do a “canon” gown from the Sailor Moon manga, show, or art. My favorite character is Makoto, or Sailor Jupiter, and I have cosplayed her before in her regular Sailor Senshi outfit. (You might think that a geek girl who likes computers would be all about Sailor Mercury. I do like her, but Sailor Jupiter is the awkward girl who is a hard kung fu badass on the outside, but a sweet romantic on the inside. Plus she loves to cook! So I love her to bits.) I knew I wanted to do something Jupiter-inspired. After examining my options, I thought about doing the green gown… but, I polled my friends, and we had never seen anyone attempt Makoto’s black gown, which Jupiter wears in the Sailor Moon Super S series. The episode is actually about a date going pretty badly for Makoto, but… I figured for a real date, it would be pretty charming. Plus, I’m kind of into the whole “girl falls for the villain” thing anyway. Sorry, not-sorry.

So I made up my mind to create this dress.

For the last year and change, I’ve been taking sewing lessons at the JoAnn Fabrics in Downingtown. I must give my thanks for this to the incredible Denise, who is the instructor there who helps with the “Sew What” classes. She will allow someone to bring in basically any project and she’ll give guidance on how to make the outfit come to life. She is a big help with teenage cosplayers and helped me make my first from-scratch cosplays, as well as this gown!

Whenever I’m ready to create a new cosplay, the first thing I do is pin a bunch of views to my Pinterest. In this case, screenshots of the dress available on-line, and a very nice rendition done on DeviantArt, were my main clear references for the costume.

Looking at the pictures of the dress in the anime, I thought black velvet would be the most dramatic for the real dress. After looking at the options available at hand, I picked the pattern McCalls M7320, View C, to make this dress.  It has a slightly longer train than the ‘canon’ dress, but I liked the effect of this. Changing the skirt bottom would be simple enough though if you wanted a shorter train on the gown. The dress does have some seams up the front. Sewing these on didn’t interfere much with the design and gave the dress some much-needed structure and fitting help. I made just a couple of small changes: one, I sewed some bra cups into the top of the dress to help out with some support, and, two, I had to create and sew on the little off the shoulder straps on either side. Other than that, the dress itself was pretty much the same as in the pattern!

The biggest challenge of this was the rose applique. To plan it, I took the art of the rose, and shifted it to grayscale, then blew it up in Photoshop. It took some trial and error to get the rose the right size. Once I had the size I liked, I printed it out on multiple pieces of paper which I taped together. I used 2/3 of a yard of red satin, and 2/3 yard of light purple satin. I had quite a bit of purple left over, but I was okay with that since it did give me some chance to make mistakes. You could probably get away with a bit less if you placed leaves carefully before cutting out.

Since getting the size of the rose right was a challenge, I’ll provide my final pattern for if you want to try it yourself. (Link to it in my public OneDrive.) I laid all the pieces out on to the fabric, and cut out interfacing in the same shape as the pieces. I used 805 weight fusible interfacing to back the satin. The first step is to iron the interfacing on the “wrong” side of the fabric, then cut the shape as precisely as you can. Finally, peel the paper back of the interfacing off. The interfacing will add stiffness to the fabric so it won’t lose its shape during the embroidery process. And it’s fusible on both sides as well for placement.

For embroidery, I had three colors of thread: pink for the rose petals, dark purple for the leaves, and a light purple embroidery thread to match the light purple on the leaves, which was used for the stems. Using my printout as a guide, I first lined up the flower shape where I wanted it, and ironed it onto the velvet fabric (carefully, since velvet is easy to wreck with too much heat). After that, I used tailor’s chalk to trace on the patterns of the petals. Then I used my sewing machine on an embroidery stitch, and carefully followed the lines that I drew! This was time consuming, and I didn’t get it exactly perfect, but I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

From there, I started first with the leaf that overlaps the rose, since its placement was most critical. Again, I ironed it on first, then sewed it on, this time with the dark purple thread. Then I used my template to carefully lay out all the remaining leaves and sew each one in place.

To make the stems, I put a paper backing under the dress, and again traced the lines I needed onto the dress with chalk. I mostly did this freehand, using the template and eyeballing the right placement for the swirl at the bottom, as well as connecting all the leaves and the rose itself. The paper backing peels off when sewing is complete. And the pattern was done!

To make the shoulder straps, we measured around the shoulders, and cut four strips of velvet with a “peak” on each one. I sewed stiff interfacing onto the inside of all four strips to make sure the sleeve pieces had enough body to stand up on their own. They don’t add any structure to the dress and just sort of hang there. But they look nice!

I’d say the one thing I ended up disliking about wearing the dress is that, even with added bra cups, it didn’t really give me much support up top. Upping my corset and bodice construction game is one skill I definitely want to work on this year in crafting. But the next time I make a ballgown, I’ll go for one that I can wear a regular bra under, for comfort reasons. My next dress is probably going to be Princess Peach!

I do have one other regret, which is that I was in the restroom when they did the “every Sailor Jupiter” group photo, and I totally missed out on it. Ugh! But there’s some photos of the ball on my Instagram. I have some professional photos coming of our final look at the ball, but in the mean time, here’s a couple snaps of the finished dress. Good luck if you try to make it yourself or something like it!