Costume Basics: Calling All Doctors, Nurses, Mad Scientists, and Escaped Mental Patients!

This is my second costuming post, and wouldn't you know it, I'll be using more pvc! We have had a bolt in about half of the colors they have at the fabric store so far, and we keep thinking of more ideas on how we can use it.

This round of costumes all started because my friends, my girlfriend, and I were all invited to a Halloween party that had a medical theme to it. We had one nurse outfit left over from a previous year, but we needed more (the white outfit shown in the picture to the left is the one that was purchased previously). Plus there are a lot of different doctor/nurse outfit themes that you can go with. Do you want to go realistic and wear scrubs? Do you want to go vintage and wear some of the older style nurse outfits that I personally love? Or perhaps you don't want to be a doctor or nurse at all, but a patient or a mad scientist? The following outfits can be adapted into any of these themes depending on the style that you choose.

 The first one that I made was one for Steffie. She decided she wanted to be the "bad" nurse. In the old cowboy movies, the bad guys always wore the black hats, so I made her nurse outfit out of black pvc.

We looked around at a lot of the Simplicity, McCalls, and Butterick patterns for ideas, but nothing was quite what we wanted. A few months before I had made Steffie a denim wrap dress, and she really loved the fit of that dress. So, I decided to use it for the nurse outfit as well. It was Simplicity Pattern 2981. If you decide you want this pattern, you will have to check online via places like Ebay since the pattern has been sadly discontinued.  The pattern goes together really easily and is very adjustable for different bust and hip sizes.  So that she could wear the dress to other places, we opted to make a magnet pin out of a small red cross applique rather than sewing it directly to the dress. I didn't want to use a regular pin because it would punch a permanent hole in the pvc. Instead I glued a magnet to the back of the applique and then used another magnet as the "back" of the pin. By not sewing a cross or other medical emblem, it allows her to wear it again for other occasions.

For my outfit that year, I decided that I didn't want to be a doctor or a nurse. I decided that I wanted to be a patient, but not just any sort of patient. In the spirit of Halloween I went with a mental patient theme, and no self respecting mental patient would be without his / her straight jacket.

I checked a lot of different places looking for a straight jack, and wow, are they ever expensive! My next step was going through all the costuming catalogs searching desperately for a pattern for one without any luck at all. None of the popular pattern companies have patterns for straight jackets in their costume sections. After that failed search, it was on to massive, LONG, internet searches for different ideas on how to create your own straight jacket. There is a lot of info out there, but not a lot of good, functional ideas. I did finally find a couple of YouTube videos that suggested using a man's dress shirt worn backwards with straps added on. I didn't want just an everyday, plain white straight jacket though.

Instead of buying a dress shirt and reusing it to create the jacket, I bought a pattern for a women's plus size dress shirt and then altered it. You'll end up leaving off the collar and the cuffs, and you'll also want to make the sleeves long enough so that they end an inch or two below your finger tips. I put slits about where the normal cuff would have been when I put the jacket together as well so that I could flip the end up to free my hand for eating and other things when I wasn't strapped in.

For the fabric I went a little crazy and purchased some of the printed vinyl that one would normally use to make a table cloth. Not only was it just printed ... it had a care bear print! If you decide to work with this vinyl take my advice and buy a silicone foot for your sewing machine. It's a nightmare to work with without it.






Keeping with that theme, I went to the thrift store and bought a handfull of little kid jelly belts to be the straps for the jacket. We cut the belts in half and attached three sets of straps to the edges of the shirt (where you would normally have your buttons and button holes). The last set of straps were attached to the edge of each sleeve. Voila! Then I had a straight jacket. For my costume, I paired the straight jacket with a set of pajamas that I also found at the thrift store and a pair of pvc boots that I found at Wal-Mart for less than $10.00.

I also later on made a great white pvc jacket that can be either a nurse dress, a doctor coat, or a lab jacket for a mad scientist. Sleep calls me, so I'll update this post with it later.

Costume Basics: Go to Outfit for When You Feel Like Playing Dress-Up

So, just in time to get those Halloween costumes started, I thought I'd share my recent costuming work as well as some that I did last summer as well. A lot of people look at elaborate costumes and get overwhelmed, but it's really not that difficult. You have to remember to take it one piece or element at a time. Whether you use a basic store bought pattern, draft your own pattern, or wing it by tossing together different clothing items and accessories you already have, it can be easy, fun, and creative to create your own costumes.

The first one that I will talk is a recent chemise/skirt ensemble that I made. My original idea was to make a traditional french maid dress for an event that Jean Bardot was hosting at the Varsity Theatre in Minneapolis. A maid was the first thing that came to mind because what else are you going to make with a whole bolt of bubblegum pink pvc? But really, how many opportunities do you get to go somewhere as a french maid? Probably not that many (if you asked yourself the question and answered every other day, clue me in to where you are going because I want to come along!).

So, with that in mind, I decided to make the outfit a little more versatile. Instead of making it a one piece dress, I opted for separates that later I can mix and match. I ended up using a McCalls shirt pattern that I had in my pattern box. This pattern is super generous in cut, so it fits a lot of different sizes and shapes in plus size. I chose option A for the shirt, but instead of making the ruffle around the neckline out of the shirt material, I used a by the yard trim that I picked up at the fabric store. It was a white satin ruffle with the binding tap built into the trim already. Using it instead of making my own binding or gathering my own ruffle saved a lot of time and frustration. I put this same trim around the edge of the capped sleeves too.

For the skirt I made a basic circle skirt using one of our favorite skirts as a pattern for making a new one. If you don't have a skirt that you really love to use as a starting point, there are a ton of sites online that will give detailed instructions on how to make your own custom circle skirt pattern. I knew from the start that I wanted a ruffled petticoat under my skirt, so I made it longer to accommodate the petticoat. If you don't do this it can very quickly become too short. I put the same white satin trim around the hem of the skirt as well.

I took some white pvc fabric that we had left over from making nurse outfits (see next post) and whipped together a freehand apron, which I trimmed with the same satin ruffle.

As a finishing touch I made a tube with some scrap pink pvc and applied the white satin trim to each side edge of the tube to make an accessory. I made it this way because it gives three different ways to wear it. You can slide the tube onto a basic plastic headband to creat the cute Japanese Lolita look. Another way to do the same thing is to thread a wide, ribbon through it  that you tie at the nape of your neck. I'm not a huge fan of this method because I have a hard time keeping these types of headbands on. The benefit to choosing the ribbon option thought is that it can also be used as a choker around the neck if you aren't feeling like a headband that day.

Now I have this cute outfit that I can wear as the originally intended maid outfit without a problem, but that I can also wear as other things as well. I can use it as a base for several cosplay outfits, as a base for a Lolita outfit, or as an adult baby / little girl outfit. While the adult baby option isn't really my thing, I know a lot of people are into it. I'm working on different diapers, diaper covers, ruffled bloomers, etc to list on my Etsy site in this genre currently and plan on selling one of these chemise/skirt ensembles as well.

I paired it with my pink brocade corset and my pink pvc boots for Jean's event, and I thought I thought it turned out really cute. I also made Steffie's dress in this picture as well and will talk about it in the next post. This outfit took me about 6 hours total to make including cutting the pieces out. I probably could have done it in 4 hours, but I wanted to be very precise on how it was put together.  Not bad for a last minute idea and a half a day's work.

If you like it and want to make one, now is definitely the time to do it. With Halloween coming up, the fabric stores are fully stocked with a wide range of pvc colors and textures.