Aussie SW exhibition-

Preparation for events/appearances, and discussions + photo-sharing afterwards.
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mdb
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Aussie SW exhibition-

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At Melbourne Armageddon last year I managed to score a free ticket to the exhibit at Scienceworks and took a few photos of costumes. Not as many as I remember but I wanted to grab some photos showing textures and layers and maybe some seam placements ;)
Anakin neckline:
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I loved the textures here. The leather tabards are self lined and the wonderful crepe textures of the tunics contrast so well. The outer tunic has a waffle crepe texture and the inner a broken lozenge almost.

Obi Wan tunic neckline.
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My photo is a little blurry but you can see how extremely loose and wide the weave is of the crepe outer tunic. The inner tunic is clearly faked and from memory it was a very flat knitted fabric. Like an interlock.

Padme Peasant
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Lovely textures and colours. The belt sash has a heavy corded effect and hand embroidered bottonhole eyelets in a creamy yellow. The outer tunic is lined and has the edges bound with a close weave fabric. the inner tunic/blouse is a crepey muslin/cheesecloth overlaid with an extremely open fabric only where the outer tunic does not cover it. The top layer is almost all wefts with very narrow tight warp threads (in fact it looks like lines of machine stitching only) every 1.5-2cm. They are treated as one layer though as can bee seen by the armscye.
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mdb
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Re: Aussie SW exhibition-

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Female Tusken:
Another example of wonderful textures.
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Mask to hood. The mask sits under the hood until jaw level and then the hanging pieces sit over the top. The hanging pieces are lined in leather and the hood appears to be glued to this as well, and raw edges are seen right at the under edge.
There is also a tuck at the point of one of the raw edges where it meets the hanging part of the mask. The stitching has come loose and was hand done.

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The hood is made of shaped pieces of very heavy cotton with a very obvious weave. The edges are raw and sewn wrong sides together so they sit on the outside. They are not overlapped but have both seam allowances exposed. The hem is also left raw and from memory there is a line of machine stitching preventing it from further unraveling.
Last edited by mdb on Tue May 10, 2011 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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MattG
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Re: Aussie SW exhibition-

Post by MattG »

mdb wrote:...
Lovely textures and colours. ...
Indeed - I tend to focus on the robots and vehicles at such exhibitions, but even I can appreciate the detail and value in these images.
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Re: Aussie SW exhibition-

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Leia:
This gown really does look like it was the promo and/or ESB end dress not a screen worn dress. They apparently were all destroyed and the subsequent dresses were made from a much heavier fabric with smaller sleeves.
Side seams
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The skirt splits were either sewn too high or pulled apart at some stage and were subsequently hand sewn. The seams pucker quite a bit here as the sewing appears a little rushed. The fabric has a very slight uneveness rexulting in slightly irregular horizontal rows. These show the skirt of the dress is actually quite flared at the side. the very obvious vertical lines of the heavy knit also show this most especially at the sides.

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The belt is quite glossy and made from one layer of heavy leather. The edges have been sealed with either the same paint heavily applied or proper belt edge sealant. The metal plates are gently curved. I suspect the glue also shows a rush repair job possibly at the same time as the skirt splits. The glue has yellowed heavily over time.

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Skirt hems. The hem is sewn that the hem is raw but a line of stitches hold the two layers together. the hem is then turned up about 3.5cm and hand sewn with a herringbone hemming stitch to leave as little evidence of sewing on the outside as possible. The weight of the fabric however leaves a shadow that shows the hem depth.
The hem also shows how the skirt is flared and the hem rounded off to keep it even, supporting the side seam evidence for a shape in the skirt.

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Hood hem. The hood is a single layer and the edge hand rolled and hand sewn. The hood is slightly shaped with a slightly rounded edge at the front. The vertical lines in the knit are interrupted unevenly at the front edge.
There is also a very small hastily hand sewn tuck at the center back of the back of the hood. This doesn't appear to have a function when the hood is up, indeed it looks quite jarringly out of place but probably has a function when the hood is down. The back of the hood becomes the inside edge when worn down and so must be shorter than the front of the hood. this tuck possibly serves that function or helps create a small weight to make that egdge hang straighter.

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Sleeve hems. The entire dress is made from two pieces, a lining and a shell made to the same shape and including sleeves and skirt. The two layers are bag lined through the sleeves and here it is possible to see how very narrow the seam allowances were. It's about as wide as a three thread overlocker would leave but the stitching is too close for that. The sleeve hems are also cut so close to the fabric selvage that the needle marks from the weaving process are visible.

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The boots do appear to be original and though most of my photos make the soles look black they were indeed a gummy brown as in this cropped picture. The gumminess of the rubber meant that the soles have become black with dirt and most of it on screen. They were smoother but still reminded me of those Nomads that were so popular in many places for school shoes in the late 1980s. They went from rubber amber/brown to black within about a month of wear.
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mdb
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Re: Aussie SW exhibition-

Post by mdb »

MattG wrote:
mdb wrote:...
Lovely textures and colours. ...
Indeed - I tend to focus on the robots and vehicles at such exhibitions, but even I can appreciate the detail and value in these images.
I can appreciate the work that went into the models and props in much the same way :) I have photos but I didn't take them so feel wrong in uploading them. If I get permission i will add them here :)
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Re: Aussie SW exhibition-

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Wow, those photos are just fantastic! You really have an eye for detail - I saw them in person myself, and so much I didn't notice.

The Padme fabric is interesting, you can really see the two layers in your photo. And that tuck at the back of the Leia hood - I've never seen that before.

Thanks so much for sharing these - awesome information for costumers :)
Rebel Legion - former LAC
Costume website FB page SWNZ FB

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