My Fair Lady

A few years ago I did the costumes for "My Fair Lady" at The Plaza Theatre.  As usual, we had a limited budget, but I was determined to have professional looking costumes.  With a lot of hard work and penny pinching, we succeeded!  The most iconic scene is the Ascot scene.  

 Everyone was in black and white or gray.  The men were all wearing "morning suits" with gray or black top hats.

  I recreated the white lace dress with black and white ribbon worn by Eliza in the movie. 

Here is what the original looked like.

The following is a brief description of how I recreated the dress.  If you are in need of more detail, just email me and I'll try to help you out.

First I had to figure out how to do the black and white trim.  If you are lucky, maybe you will find a black and white striped fabric that you could use to make the trim.  Me, I wasn't so lucky.  It dawned on me that I could use grosgrain ribbon to recreate the look.  I took 7/8" black and white grosgrain ribbon and butted them up next to each other and sewed them together with a wide zigzag stitch.  I think I used white thread, but you could use black.  Either way, the stitching wouldn't show from the stage.  I used a whole lot of ribbon.  As you can see, the rows are black, white, black, white, black.  And there are bows involved.  You will have to do the math yourself to see how much ribbon is needed.  Once it was all sewn together, it was very easy to work with.

Then I had to make a lace dress.  I knew I needed a lot of lace fabric for this dress so I kept my eyes open for sales.  I stumbled across some lace fabric yardage that was very inexpensive (and looked very nice--also an important factor) for around $3 a yard.  At that price, I bought the whole bolt.


The next step was the pattern.  You see that dress Audrey Hepburn is wearing up there?  There is no currently available commercial pattern for that dress.  I had to create one.  It had to be modified to work with our production and our actress, but still evoke the original.  I went through my stash of patterns and put together parts of two or three different patterns that would result in the look I wanted.


I can't stress enough how important it is to have extensive measurements of your actress when you are making something this fitted.  Bust, waist, hip is not nearly enough.  You should measure across the shoulders in the back, above the bust, below the bust, neck to waist, and around the upper arm.  There is nothing worse than making a garment that fits everywhere except in the circumference of the sleeves.


Then I started thinking about how a sheer lace would work as a dress.  Obviously it would need a lining.  But if you put a white lining behind a white lace, then the lace will disappear (especially on stage).  I decided to use a beige or nude lining.  This allows the lace to be seen.  I did not line the sleeves or the lower ruffle.  Our dress did not have a train like the original because it didn't work with our production (our stage is not that big, so people would be walking on it when the actors moved around).


Once we added the purchased hat and parasol, I thought the effect was excellent.  


Later I will post some suggestions about how to purchase tuxedos very inexpensively.  You will be surprised at how cheap they can be gotten!


Happy costuming!