Patterns

It took me a while to find the proper patterns to adapt for the costume. One webpage I came across suggested McCall's 5828 pattern (full formal skirt with fitted jacket), but unfortunately McCall's no longer produces that pattern and I couldn't find it anywhere.

I ended up using two patterns: Butterick 6694, an historical 1860s skirt and jacket, and McCall's 2156, a Chinese-inspired shirt pattern.

Click on the image for a larger version.

I chose this skirt for two reasons. First, it was constructed to be worn over a hoopskirt, even though the person who would be wearing it would be using a petticoat, so the overall shape of the skirt would be that of a bell, rather than a cone. Most full formal skirts in current times are made to taper evenly up to the waistline in a cone shape, which doesn't give quite the proper silhouette. If the client wanted to purchase a hoopskirt later, she could also wear it with the costume without having to worry about it fitting correctly. Secondly, the skirt managed to be a full skirt on only 7 yards of fabric. I even managed to cut all the shirt pieces out of the remnants from the skirt cutting, which saved 3.5 yards of fabric, which brought the client's cost down by $25. The skirt had a zipper and a small train, but I altered it to remove the zipper (for fitting ease) and to make the hem even all the way around.

The shirt pattern had the most important element: a mandarin collar. The corners of the collar were curved instead of straight, but this was an easy change to make. The pattern even had a sleeveless variation. All I had to do to alter it, besides the collar, was to shorten the shirt and to tailor the inside seams on a curve to fit closely to the wearer's body. And to remember that Anthy's vest buttoned the opposite way from the pattern.