Lorraine Baines

Lorraine Baines – Prom Dress | Back to the Future

Made for : Trip to Universal Studios Orlando in 2016

Background : My best friend Anna had told me to watch Back to the Future for years and for whatever reason, I resisted. In 2016 I finally caved and turns out she was right. I loved it and it was so much fun. I adored the aesthetic of the 1950s and loved all the fashion that was worn to the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance with Lorraine’s pink dress obviously being my favourite.

Something that I did when taking the photos with Nichelle, is we did our best to recreate all the stills from the film that we could find online at the time and I think they turned out so well.

gallery

Things used :

Simplicity 4070
Pink cotton
White flocked polka dot tulle
Pink zip

construction

Hair : I set my hair the night before the shoot with a setting spray and did it all up in pin curls. The next day I sprayed them with a light amount of hairspray before taking out the curls and brushing them through. Once I got to the photo shoot location, I took some white flowers from the garden and stuck them in my hair.

Dress : I used Simplicity 4070 for the bodice of this dress. The seams weren’t exact but it did give me the sweetheart neckline that I wanted. I drafted the band along the top myself which is why it’s kinda wonky looking in places. I had also just learnt how to make a circle skirt from scratch which is what I used for the skirt of the dress.

I chose a pink cotton for the dress and a polka dot flocked tulle for the overlay. When making the bodice, I basted all the tulle pieces to the cotton first so they wouldn’t shift about when I sewed the pieces together. I made both the skirt pieces the same length to begin with and once they were both attached to the top I cut the tulle layer to be higher in the front and longer in the back.

Accessories : The shoes were borrowed from the costume hire shop that I worked at at the time. For the shoot, I wore a white tulle petticoat underneath for that added oomph. I didn’t wear the petticoat to Universal because it would have been far too hot.

George Mcfly : Modelled by my friend Joel. The whole costume was borrowed from the costume hire shop that I worked at at the time.