Rey’s Star Wars The Force Awakens Costume- Part 1

I was unable to go to the 2016 Phoenix Comicon, making this second time in two years I couldn’t go, but that’s how life goes. Despite this, I thought about what costume I wanted to make for the convention. I already had costumes planed for the convention, but since I knew I wouldn’t be able to go, I didn’t finish them by the date of the convention.

The weekend of the 2016 Phoenix Comicon was the hottest on record (With temperatures around or above 110 degrees Fahrenheit) and, since I was stuck at home, I began to look at the costumes I wanted to wear to the convention. I realized that all the costumes I wanted to wear would be too hot to wear during those temperatures.

A few weeks before Comicon, I found out McCall’s has a costume pattern for Rey from Star Wars The Force Awakens. Since Hobby Lobby had a sale on McCall’s patterns, I bought the last one that was in the store. (I also bought the last Kylo Ren costume pattern, but that’s besides the point.) Since I had the pattern, and Rey’s costume would be perfect to wear to a convention that is held during a time when Arizona has such high temperatures, I decided to make Rey’s costume so I can have it ready to wear anytime I wanted to wear a costume to a convention, but it’s too hot to wear a ballgown or wear any Doctor Who costume I have. I also plan on using it as a back up Halloween costume in case this year’s my planned costume doesn’t end up working out or get finished in time.

In case anyone doesn’t know what Rey looks like, here’s a picture of her…

Before I began working on the costume, I looked online for break downs of her costume. Since Rey is such a popular character, many people wanted to make her costume. Fortunately for me, I waited to make the costume until now so I had plenty of references, break downs, and resource lists to help me figure out how to make the costume myself. Plus the McCall’s pattern, which ended up coming in handy.

My favorite break down of the materials in Rey’s costume is from The RPF forum. I ended up not using any of the fabrics suggested on the thread, but I was able to find some fabric that I thought would work for the costume anyway. 🙂

The fabrics in the photo are silk chiffon in light taupe, white knit fabric, and grey twill. When I was fabric shopping, I though silk chiffon was the screen accurate fabric used for the wrap dress (I call it drapes) for the costume in the movie, but it turned out it was actually was viscose. Oops! Anyway, I couldn’t find polyester chiffon in the right taupe color I wanted, but this silk chiffon is the right color and is pretty much perfect for what I wanted it to do, sans the price. Still, I’m pleased I bought it. 🙂 The knit fabric was for the shirt and the grey twill is for the pants.

Originally I planned on making the costume over the course of one weekend, but I was pulled away for a few days so the costume (Pants, drape/wrap dress, and shirt) took me a week to finish.

Since I wasn’t 100% sure what direction I wanted the patterns to look like, I decided to make the pants and shirt using the McCall’s Rey pattern, M7421…

At this point I already decided not to use the pattern for the drape/wrap dress. I didn’t like the way the pattern said the panels needed to be cut, so I decided to use one continuous piece of chiffon for the drape/wrap dress. The pants, on the other hand, was made following the instructions from the pattern without any modifications.

This is what the pants look like without the elastic in them. Much to my surprise, they weren’t that hard to make. I’m normally horrible at sewing pants so finishing these pants and seeing how well they turned out made me ridiculously happy. Since I wasn’t sure if the McCall’s pattern was like other pant and skirt patterns I’ve used, I used the largest size the pattern was made for and then took the pants in as I went along. For whatever reason, pants and skirt patterns (Sans very full skirt patterns) I’ve used in the past do not fit over my hips. It doesn’t matter if I use the size that is supposed to fit me, they are too small. Because this has happened too many times, I decided to not take any chances and used the biggest size the McCall’s pattern gives for the pants. Turned out the pattern was too big and I needed to take it in, but I’d rather have a lot of fabric to take away than start from scratch because the pants are too small.

After I finished the pants, I worked on the drapes. I decided not to follow the pattern’s instructions on how to make the drapes because I wasn’t fond of cutting the fabric and resewing it. Instead, I draped the chiffon on my dress form and pinned it until I liked the way the fabric hung. Once I got the fabric to drape the way I wanted it to, I gathered the fabric at the shoulders by hand sewing two rows of stitches. Originally I wanted to make only one row, but I found that two rows controlled the fabric and the way it draped better.

Here’s what the drapes looked like after I was finished sewing the shoulders.

(Yes, there is an Ivy plant in the lower left hand corner of the photo. It was there temporarily until I had a better, sunny place to put it.)

Well, that’s all I have to say about my Rey costume for now. As of this post, I finished the shirt, but not the belt and wrist cuff. I tried making the belt, but it didn’t turn out right so I’m debating if I should have someone make one for me or conquer my fears of belt making and try again. Because of this, I don’t expect the last post to be finished anytime soon.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading about my incomplete Rey costume!