Journey into Construction

I have previously posted about designing an outfit that would fit in with the Asgardian culture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is how I made it.

The pattern for my Asgardian outfit is based on McCall’s 3129 for the body. The grey swathes were draped. I hemmed them by hand and then sewed them to the body by hand because I didn’t think machine sewing would look nice or allow me the control I wanted over placement.

The back swathes are trimmed with gold faux leather. As well as being decorative this weights the swathes so they move nicely.

Because the faux leather doesn’t heal pinholes the way fabric does, I held it in place for sewing with bobby pins.

What I hadn’t thought of in my design (because drawn fabric will sit however you want it to) was how to make the front swathes fitting. At first I tried darts and, while they worked on the muslin, the real thing didn’t take them so well. It turned out a pleat worked just fine.

The swathes are sewn into the side and shoulder seams but not the sleevehole because I wanted to have a layered effect as is often found in Asgardian clothes.

I copied the construction of my hood from Sif’s in Thor and it turned out to be much simpler than other hoods I have made before. You start with a rectangle and put in two pleats at the centre back.

To put the outfit on, the two front swathes unzip at the side seams.

I had trouble finding the zips for this outfit because I needed jacket zips with metal teeth, with the slide the same colour as the teeth, and the colour had to look gold. Turns out zips with gold teeth but a silver slide are a thing?? Eventually I found some that were the way I wanted. They only came in various lengths of Way Too Long but that was alright because I could cut them to length and I needed enough to make trim as well.

The sleeves are attached to the outfit by functional zips. The zip ends overlap at the back.

The shape of the sleeve was largely determined by how they zip fitted in the armhole, which actually took a lot of hassle out of trying to make the sleeve pattern fit just so.

To make the patchwork sections of the sleeve, I stitched together the design I wanted into a rectangle and then cut out the shape I wanted for the lower part of the sleeve.

I sewed the upper and lower sections together and put the zip trim over the top.

The vambraces have a strip of black stretch fabric on the inside instead of a closure. This makes them easy to get on and off, and even though it looks a bit weird bit to me, it is not inconsistent with Asgardian styles.

Photos of the finished outfit are here.





Movie images belong to Marvel Studios.