Pocahontas

Pocahontas has been one of my favourite Disney movies ever since I was a kid.  I loved her sense of adventure and her close connection to her surroundings.  She is a strong and powerful role model to young girls and I think there should be more princesses like her, who are not necessarily garbed in pretty dresses and are saved by their prince charming.  I really wanted to embody her character in a cosplay so I chose to make her 2012 redesign costume.

Construction:

Dress - The dress itself was separated into three different parts: the bodice, the shoulder strap and the skirt.  The bodice had a sweetheart shaped neckline so I took my pattern I drafted for Mew Zakuro and modified it.  The shoulder strap and skirt pattern were hand drafted first using my measurements.  I then made a mock up of the dress in order to determine where to take it in and fit it to my body.  I marked all the new pinned seams with chalk before I took it off my body.  Before I took the mock up apart, I marked and the cut the seam allowance from every seam that was pinned.  The mock up was then pulled apart and used as my official pattern for the dress.

Mock Up

I made the dress out of a tan fashion suede.  The bodice and shoulder strap were lined.  The skirt was made to fit using darts in the front and back.  It also sports a slit along the longer side of the asymmetric hem.  The dress closes up with an invisible zipper and a hook and eye fastener.  Beads were added to part of the front of the skirt hem and to the front of the bodice and shoulder strap.  Brown and white feathers were sewn in a random alternating pattern on the bodice.

Feather Fringe

Sash - The sash was simple to make.  A piece of fabric that had a curve on the bottom and a straight edge on the top was made out of a sand coloured fashion suede.  It has a hem along the straight edge and a fringe along the curved edge.  It snaps to the side of the dress for easy removal.

Belt - The belt was made using a brown fashion suede.  The pattern was drawn out to fit to my measurements and the curve of the waistline,  It snaps shut in the back and snaps to the dress in the front to keep it from riding up.  It was adorned with beads and some feathers one on side.

Boots - I wanted to make the boots completely from scratch so I used Butterick's B5233 pattern as a base.  The main portion of the boot was made using different coloured fashion suede whereas the sole of the boot was made using brown vinyl.  I inserted invisible zippers into the back of each boot and while it takes a hell of a lot of effort to close them over my legs, it certainly does the trick!  The boots are adorned with feathers and beads on the inside of each leg.  They were the hardest thing to make in this costume and unfortunately I think that they will only last another wear or two.  I will probably have to look for a replacement pair if I want to continue wearing her.

Adding the fringe

Wig - I bought a black wig off of ebay for about $12.  I made sure to find one that either had long bangs that I could push aside or no bangs at all.  The wig I ended up buying had long layers with no bangs.  It had a skin top right along the hairline but it was a little weird so I had to trim it to fit closer to the wefts.

Wig

Accessories - In the 2012 redesign, Pocahontas wears earrings.  I don't have holes in my ears so I decided to sew the "earrings" into the wig.  The beads and feathers were sewn onto a leather cord which was then sewn into the side-burn portion of the wig.  The necklace was made using sculpy and paint.  I made each piece separately and put a hole through each "bead" using a skewer stick.  The sculpy was baked for the allotted time required.  They were painted and then strung with a cord.  I used a needle to get the cord through the holes.

Complete Costume