My dress from the Mulan World Premiere

Hello! Here is more information on the dress I created to wear to the World Premiere of 'Mulan' in Hollywood! It was such an unbelievable experience and afterwards my dress even got featured on buzzfeed :) *dreaming of the next time i'll be able to wear my own creation on the red carpet*

If you haven't seen my youtube video explaining all the steps, make sure to watch that first!

Here are all the materials I used:

-5 yards of floral sequin fabric. I think I used about 4ish yards but I like to buy more than less just in case. I went to my local Joann and picked out a beautiful floral sequin print. They don't have the exact color online right now but this is the same print in purple: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ux38/

-5 yards of satin fabric in a color of your choice! I went with a pinky-champagne color. I actually owned it at home already so was really happy I finally could make use of it.

-Medium weight interfacing (enough to cover 1 bodice layer): https://go.magik.ly/ml/ux4i/

-1.5 yards of boning: https://amzn.to/38OxGbd

-All purpose zipper: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ux3i/

-Stiff tulle for the pettiskirt (optional if you want your skirt to have some poof)

-Matching thread

TOTAL COST: Sorry I don't know exactly but it was not cheap for that sequin fabric. Pretty sure I paid over $150 for everything. It all depends on where you buy your fabric and what kind of fabric you're using. I hope you can save more money than I did! I normally would've went to the LA fashion district but I didn't have time to travel 2 hours there and back.

If you're on a time crunch like me, a strapless dress is definitely a lot less complicated than a design with any kind of straps. The only thing I don't like about them is that you might be pulling it up all night. Thank you for all the tips on using a waist stay to help the bodice stay up! I have never personally tried it before but will look into that for my next strapless design.

How long did it take me to make?

I started designing and drafting the dress on Saturday but since I changed my bodice shape from a plunging V to an upward curved bodice, I didn't finalize my patterns until Saturday night. Which means I began sewing on Sunday and finished hemming the dress by Monday morning (day of premiere). I think creating a dress in this amount of time is very doable however I don't recommend it if your event is literally the next day. My body was so exhausted from sewing, I barely got any sleep, and I was rushed to leave to the premiere and ended up forgetting my pettiskirt! Argh!

I also wanted to mention that the upward curved bodice design is still quite flimsy with the interfacing so you might need something even thicker for the center front bodice piece.

I hope this information helped some of you out. Thanks for stopping by and reading!

-April