Moulin Rouge One! Star Wars and Moulin Rouge mash up

This idea came from a very fun group on Facebook who wanted to make light of the Rouge//Rogue misspellings. Here is a quote from the group “A casual, satirical mashup of Rogue One and Moulin Rouge – or anything Star Wars and can-can! Bring your inspirations to conventions and casual troops!”.

I was inspired by the flight suits worn by rebel pilots but wanted to make a semi-historically accurate can-can dress from the late 1800’s. I found Laughing Moon pattern #105 and it was perfect. I can’t say enough about this fantastic pattern. Her historical notes and construction methods were amazing. I had to do very little modifications to this pattern. I’m now a fan of Laughing Moon for life!

I ordered $4 per yard orange taffeta fabric from my trusty Fabric.com. Since we are both based in Atlanta, I usually receive my orders the next day. I also like that I can easily reorder since they have a huge inventory.

Above: Picture of the bum/bustle pad.

Below: Picture of the inside of the bustle. The ties hold the puffs in place.

I also used the hat pattern provided in the Laughing Moon pattern. It ended up being much bigger than I envisioned but I think it still worked. I used an off white stretch velour fabric for the base and cut out the felt appliques with my Silhouette Machine and a few by hand. For the structure, I fused together two layers of heavyweight buckram and used millinery wire around the brim so I can flex it into shape.  It’s GIANT!

The overskirt was pretty easy. I used a ribbed white velour fabric to match the flak vest and cut the rebel bird appliques with my Silhouette machine (I first had to iron on an interfacing to help hold the lightweight taffeta when cutting).

The ruffle skirt was very time consuming. I needed LARGE quantities of ribbon for the underskirt and I needed to run it through my ruffler foot. I estimated to need around 125 yards of 4in wide orange and white ribbon. I also needed ribbon that wouldn’t fray and is also double faced (looks good on both sides). I was also running out of time and needed it fast. I somehow found Grand Opening Ribbon spools on Amazon Prime and it worked perfectly. I was also able to order more if needed so this worked great.

So much ruffling… I ended up putting the spools on ribbon on a toilet paper stand so I could quickly sew it through my foot as fast as my machine would allow. This really helped to speed up the process.

Arial view of the 100+ yards of ruffles attached to the underskirt (plain white taffeta):

I made a chest box out of printable shrink film and attached it to a beaded necklace for my first appearance but later upgraded to a box from a kid’s halloween costume.

The costume was originally created for Star Wars Celebration 2017 in Orlando, FL for a group meet-up.

This was also worn at DragonCon 2017 and featured on several blogs such as EPBOT’s 20 Punniest Cosplays of Dragon Con 2017