Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn – Nightclub Dress | Suicide Squad

Made for : Dragoncon 2016

Background : A few weeks before I flew out from New Zealand to the States for Dragoncon I watched Suicide Squad at a media screening event. I fell in love instantly with Harley Quinn. I adored all her outfits but her dress she wore in the Nightclub scene stole the show. So a week out from leaving, I decided to replicate it for myself based on what I could remember of the film.

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Things used :

Glittery gold fabric
Glittery black fabric
gold chain
Gold ring hoop
Gold fringe trim
Black fringe trim
2x white wigs from Wig is Fashion
Blue Rit poly dye
Pink Rit poly dye
Tattoos from Hot Topic

construction

Wig : I brought two long, white, curly wigs from Wig is Fashion one of which I unpicked the rows of wefts from. I then sewed these rows of wefts in to the back of the other wig, in the opposite direction of the existing wefts. I did this so that the wig could be tied in to high pigtails and none of the wig cap would be visible. After styling the wig in to Harley’s Squad style pigtails, I dipped each pigtail in to two seperate coloured dye baths, one pink and one blue. When wearing the wig for this costume, all I had to do, was undo the pigtails and curl the ends.

Dress : I started making this dress based purely on what I remembered after watching the film. I would have preferred to use sequinned fabric but I couldn’t find any at the time, that’s how I ended up with the glittery gold and black stuff.

The dress is basically one long, vertical rectangle for the front piece and a short horizontal one for the back. I cut out a bunch of diamond shapes from the black fabric and sewed them on top of the gold rectangles. I then added alternating gold and black fringe along the hem of the dress. For the shoulder straps, I used lengths of gold chain which connected to a gold ring in the back. There were then gold chains that connected to the side seams for more support and a bunch of decorative ones that attached to the back of the dress that offered no structural support at all.

Accessories : My shoes were brought from a secondhand store. The gold watches were found at a dollar store. The jewellery was purchased from Lovisa with the exception of the necklace which was brought from Hot Topic. The tattoos were also purchased from Hot Topic.