Takane Shijou’s Thank You Dress from Idolm@ster

A Note Before Reading this Post…

I wrote this post in April 2015, but never posted it because I wanted to make a few changes to the costume. In 2015, I did not go to Phoenix Comicon (Now known as Phoenix Fan Fusion) like I planned. I recently rediscovered this post saved and ready to be posted. Currently, I’m looking through my old costumes to see if there is anything I don’t fit into and would I would like to remake. The Takane Shijou Thank You Dress from Idolm@ster is one of those dresses. Before I begin to seriously look into remaking the dress, I wanted to publish this post so I can reference it in the future.

 

Back in 2014, before the Phoenix Comicon, I tried to watch the anime Idolm@ster. At that time I didn’t watch a lot of anime and I was trying to find series I’d like to watch. I heard of Idolm@ster so I watched the first episode and liked it. Unfortunately, I didn’t watch beyond the first episode. I still want to finish watching the series, but I have trouble finding time.

Despite not finishing the anime, I immediately fell in love with Takane Shijou. I could go on and on about why I like Takane Shijou, but I blame it mostly on the fact she’s taller than most of the girls in the anime and she has long grey/silver hair. I’m not a super tall person, but after my growth spurts I’m not average height anymore. Standing next to other women in grocery stores and conventions without heels, I’m either their height or taller than them. I also love long grey/silver hair. Because of this, I began to really like Takane very much. As the Phoenix Comicon neared, I thought why not be Takane for the convention?

I found the perfect dress too. Takane’s dress from a trading card. Although I couldn’t find a lot of information about the card, I read somewhere (And I can no longer find the link) the card was called “Thank you!” Because of this, I called the dress the “Thank you dress”…

When making the dress, everything went well. Sure, I had to rip some seams and re-cut the straps of the dress, but then again it could’ve been worse. As the convention neared, I began to plan what day I would wear it, what shoes to wear, and so on. I was really excited to wear it, but then two unexpected things happened:

I hated the way the dress looked on me and I got blisters on my feet.

Since the shoes I planned to wear with my costumes might irritate the blisters, I had to rethink dressing up for Phoenix Comicon 2014. I ended up not wearing any costume for the convention and just wore well broken in sneakers all weekend.

Although I love this dress and the dress I made, I really hated the way I looked in it. For whatever reason, my body was swollen at that time and felt neither pretty nor idol-like. Looking at the dress and how I look in it now, I don’t know why I had such self confidence issues wearing it. Then again, I am feeling a lot better than I was back then so that could be why I don’t mind how I look in it now. 😛

Anyway, the dress was never worn and it’s sat in my to-fix sewing pile until I found it a few days ago. Since I was taking photos of costumes and things I’ve sewn, I brought it outside and took a photo of it.

Here it is…

As you can see, the dress is too big for my dress form. This happens every time I put my tight fitting clothing on my dress form. My bust is bigger than what the dress form adjusts too so I have to live with my dresses not fitting the dress form. (Takane is also busty so that also help sell me on her character.)

There are still parts of the dress I want to fix and change, mostly with the straps and the bow on the side of the dress. The straps are different in the reference picture so I’d like to fix that. Also, there isn’t a bow on the side of the dress so I need to make that and sew it onto the dress. There are other things I want to change with the dress, but I’m not convinced it will look good. Also, I think the dress’ skirt would benefit from a petticoat. It’s not as fluffy as I’d like it to be and the answer to that problem is a petticoat.

The dress was made using white casa satin, purple sequin dot fabric, and Suede Says “color fade” fabric. Although Joann’s still sells color fade fabric in the Suede Says fabric line, the colors the fabric I used in the skirt is no longer available. It makes me sad because it was really pretty! (I can be a sucker for purple/turquoise colored things) I used Simplicity’s now out of print 1655 for the bodice while I just measured and cut rectangles for the skirt and trim.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!