3rd February 2004: To decide on a design I used the clothes in the reference picture shown and merged it with some features and the colours on another art book picture that could almost be the same costume.

Made from white duchess satin and the most amazing smokey blue satin I found by chance in a tiny shop. The skirt is very full, but lies fairly flat when still. With the blue rippled fabric on top this is a very heavy skirt and I was slightly worried, as it's designed to sit on hips, that the weight would pull it down, but it worked fine with the belt separate on top to give a smooth line. The top zips up at the back and is cut straight across at the front, but then gathered by a pin-backed circle ornament.

The big circular designs on the headdress and skirt front were made by sticking some spare metal bangles to a sheet of the white satin and trimming off the edges when dry. I then used a gold Guter pen to draw the inner designs and glued the small coloured stones to the satin (bought from a craft shop). Using the metal bangle for the frame made them really sturdy and gave them a slight weight so they hung nicely. Though I did have to peel them off my bathroom floor after glueing ^^

For the headdress I bought standard craft shop feathers (two lots bending in opposite directions) and trimmed them down to sleek points before glueing them in behind the headdress circles. I glued a large safety pin to the back of these circles and hung the tassel off it (with a little glue to hold central) this meant they could then be removed from the headband and laid flat to avoid being crushed in transit. The circle on the belt was also pin-backed for easy dressing.

I was lucky this kind of jewellery was in fashion at the time and got an amazingly loud jingly belt in the sales. The other drapery is plastic Fabricland trimmings, but I think having the noise when you move really makes a difference.