Harley Quinn | 2021

Harley Quinn – Red Dress | The Suicide Squad

Made for : Auckland Armageddon Expo 2021

Background : I love Harley Quinn, and I love dresses. Need I say more? Although I originally planned to debut this dress at the 2021 Auckland Armageddon Expo, it has been postponed twice now because of this pandemic and I reckon I can make a better one now that I know how much fabric it uses.

Things used :

Wig : Brought from Ali Express. Honestly I was pretty surprised with the quality of this wig considering the price. I like how the hair was a gradient dye rather than separate wefts like you’d usually get for this price. For styling, I took out the pre-style, did some back-combing, tied it back into the style. I braided the pigtails in to about five braids each and ran my hair-straightener over them. When undone, this gave them the wavy texture I was after

Dress : I drafted a princess seam halter neck bodice. Something which has convinced me to redo it again because after doing so, I noticed it has separate cups *facepalm*. Anyway ~ The top had a layer of cotton for the lining which I attached some iron-on interfacing to to give it some structure. Then I ironed flat the seam allowances and stitched twill tape over them to create boning channels to which I added plastic boning to help give the garment more support.
For the outer layers of fabric I had three layers. A bottom layer of red bridal satin, a middle layer of sequin tulle and then an outer layer of the red pleated tulle. These three layers were all basted together first before constructing the top to avoid them slipping around.
The halter strap was a single layer of the red satin. The ‘sleeve’ straps were a single layer of the red satin with some elastic in the center so I could move my arms. I made them as loops but having looked at more reference photos since, I think the loop part of the strap only goes around the arm and not back to the dress. I then tied left over pleated tulle in a bow at the arm.

The skirt part of the dress was super simple just incredibly time consuming. I created a series of strips of the same width of the pleated tulle and sequin tulle. Then laying the pleated over the sequin, I sewed them together along the top edge. Then I went along that same edge with a gathering stitch and gathered all of the strip.
For the underskirt I created a circle skirt from bemsilk lining. I drew on it with chalk where I wanted the sewing lines for the tulle strips to go. Then it was just a matter of sewing all the strips along the chalk lines.
After I was happy with the tiers, I hacked away at the remaining edge of the bemsilk underskirt to give it that – ‘I just tore half this dress away in a battle’ – look.

The skirt was attached to the bodice and closures were added in the back. I had a zip for the skirt to the waist and from the waist up I added some satin cording in loops to create a lace up back.

Boots : I found the boots at an opshop for $1. They were broken and damaged but perfect for battle worn shoes.

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