Finding closure

I have now finished my re-creation of Elizabeth's first outfit from Bioshock Infinite.

When I last wrote about the shirt I said I was dreading the buttonholes. Turns out it was most fortuitous that I left them for a while as eventually I noticed something else in my reference images.

Elizabeth's shirt doesn't have buttonholes. The buttons are on the right front (the side that is on top) even when the shirt is open. Cue great rejoicing.

Fake buttons over other kinds of joins is also period accurate so after this discovery I lost no time in finishing the closure. Buttons on the outside, snaps on the inside, and hooks and loops at the very top, as, in the picture, her outfit has no visible fastenings when the neck is open.

The yoke is attached with flat-felled seams. The back has a central pleat and is gathered (unevenly) into the yoke.

To keep the bulk of the shirt at the back, the pleat is secured below the skirt level using a technique I found in Authentic Victorian Dressmaking Techniques.

The scarf is a bias-cut rectangle sewn into a tube. I used the wrong side of a soft satin. The choker is made from eyelet lace with a ribbon running through the middle. The ribbon is used to fasten it at the back of the neck.

I entered this outfit in the Canberra Show and won first place in the Summer/Winter Garment category.

Bioshock Infinite belongs to Take-Two Interactive Software