The Emerald Jewel

The spring ballet season has started and so has the costuming for our ballet companies production Aladdin. Its so exciting making things from old dresses, brocade fabrics, and treasures unearthed from estate sales or thrift stores. The first costume I made was an example of reusing an old dress and giving it new life. This costume is the Emerald jewel. She one of the many jewels that appear in the cave of riches that Aladdin is locked into, towards the beginning of the story. When I think of an emerald, especially in this setting, I think of flashy, sultry and rich colors. When I spotted this dress on the rack of kindly donated dresses for costume purposes, I knew that it would be a great base to start with. I converted the top part of the dress into a bra top. Seeing that the olive green was a bit dull, I sewed on sequins, bugle beads, and jewels to give it more depth and intrest. The tassles were salvaged from an old curtain. By adding beads and glitter glue, I was able to create a more luxurious look.  The dancer that was going to be wearing this costume is tall, and the straps that came with the dress looked flimsy with her long body. By adding chiffon sleeve/straps, it balanced out the top and added the much needed emerald green color.

 The other half of the dress was used for the skirt. I added 2 emerald colored chiffon skirts and attached them to the dress with a trim covered waisted band. I also added the same beads used on the top to the beading on the skirt. For extra shimmer, I sewed on sequins and beads to the edges of the skirts to give the appearance of being dipped.
The headpiece was my own design using a necklace found while thrifting. I used tecniques that I learned at a headpiece class taught by Tutu.com in North Carolina. Their facebook page is inspiring, just search tutu.com.

Up next is the Diamond jewel. I will post when it is finished.