The Great Endeavor – Charity’s Pink Dress

– The Greatest Showman Costume Replicas –

I did it again.  I took a leap.  I made a crazy decision.  I made a decision based on a dream of a video.

If you’re anything like me, you know this movie.  Not only know it, but have watched it (maybe more than once!). Not only watched it, but absolutely LOVE it!

I love it, not only for its overall awesomeness, but for each specific part…costumes, choreography, videography, the actors (?)….the list goes on!

Yes, I’m referring to the greatest musical of all time (at least in my opinion)…”The Greatest Showman“, starring Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya, and many more!

For as long as I can remember, as my parents anniversary rolls around, my siblings and I have created a special dinner, themed to a specific country.  A couple years ago, we realized that we had run out of the various “groups” of countries.  We didn’t have a country to theme the dinner too…thus, we decided to decorate based on a favorite show.  Then came a spur of the moment idea to create a lip-sync video of the show’s theme song (featuring us children who set up the dinner!) It was a hit.  It become a tradition.

With “The Greatest Showman” soundtrack playing constantly, whether in our heads or on our speakers, it wasn’t too hard to decide what the theme would be!

Next, we had decide which song to sing too…that one wasn’t too hard either. Everyone is raving about “This is Me”, now don’t get me wrong, it’s great song, but I believe there’s a song that gets overlooked…the song is…”A Million Dreams”!

I’m in love with the whole “A Million Dreams” scene.

I love the way it perfectly describes the expectations that children have…the expectations of those who are falling in love.  Real world eventually hits, but that’s what so spectacular about the story of the Greatest Showman, even with “real world”, the dreams become reality, and together, husband and wife, they work through the struggles!

Oops, I forgot this is a sewing blog. I better start taking about costumes!

So, once we decided on the song (and we made a crazy decision of actually singing, like with our real voices…??), I started researching the costumes.  At first I was only planning to recreate Charity’s pink dress, which is her most popular dress, but after looking into her other outfit (the one that she wears for traveling/dancing near the railway), I fell in love.

Everyone thought I was crazy; I even did!

In my next post I’ll discuss the making of the traveling outfit…for now I’ll just explain the pink dress.

Now that you’ve heard the whole background story, here’s the video….but, actually not…the video got enough dislikes and rude comments that I decided to take it down. I’m very proud with what we accomplished, but our voices aren’t spectacular (not that I was expecting them to be, but other people are.)

Screenshots of the video will have to suffice!

Anyways, thanks to my awesome brother, both for the videography and being my Hugh Jackman!

~ Onto the the Costumes ~

Costume #1: Pink Dress

Deciding on layers of chiffon for the dress wasn’t too hard!  The flow of the dress is lovely; chiffon just sounded right!

Based on the picture below, I decided to use a charmeuse fabric (in a slightly lighter pink) for the lining. 

I layered the skirt with 3 layers of chiffon and 1 layer of charmeuse.

If you need help with the shirring technique, here’s a great article.

(I must admit, I needed some help with shirring…so I googled and found what I needed!)

A unique detail of this dress is show in the next two photos…do you see it?

If you caught it, you noticed the the “band” of lighter pink edging on the bodice neckline/v-neck. I decided to use pink ribbon for this edging.

Now that your bodice is prepped, move onto the sleeves!

Detail pictures below.  Look at the wrist smocking/shirring on both pictures.

Compared to what you see when Charity wears the dress, the smocking/shirring must be covered up quite a bit!

The sleeves are attached, the bodice is attached, and I’ve placed the cream “cover-up” in the v-neck.

I have a zipper on the right side (you can see the opening in the picture below)!

~ All Finished ~

These lovely photos are by Smile For Sophie Photography!

Thanks for looking and learning with me!