Puppet Dress Costume

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Puppet Dress

Priscilla Queen of the Desert Amateur theatre production September 2021.

Murray Bridge Players and Singers

Kurt as Mitzi - rehearsal photo by Jay Birdy Photography

I started this costume in February 2021. The Puppet dress is a bit of an enigma. All I had to go on was some still images of the dress made by other productions of Priscilla and a you tube video. I had to work out how the actor would walk onto stage wearing what seemed to be a floaty blue dress and then reveal two hand puppets sewn into the skirt.

this image by Paul Hogans from ocregister.com

this design by Charades theatrical

My inspiration cam from this dress I had in my Opp Shop stash from 2017. I bought it for $9 because I liked the fabric and the beading. All together I figured it would have enough material for the puppet dress.

Now that I had chosen this dress as my starting point I now had to make it fit a male body.

I unpicked the bodice seams and let out the bust darts.

reshaped the back

After the first fitting I also had to add some width into the side seams. The bust dart gap with net and lace from the skirt

I had some silver embroidered sequin lace. It had silver glitter painted sequins, with motifs, a border and a serpentine double line of sequins. Each of these elements could be cut from the net and would not fray making them perfect for embellishments.

silver metallic embroidered motif

I cut multiple motifs from the sequin lace and pinned them to the bodice. I left the bust cups in place and built the decorations up from the waist seam.

Lace motifs pinned to bodice

Motifs and sequin trim cut from net

To secure the motifs onto the bodice I used freehand machine embroidery and followed the lines in the motif. I used a silver metallic thread in the top to match the motifs and blue in the bobbin.

freehand machine stitching on wrong side

Stitching is invisible from the right side

Auditioning the net upper bodice idea.

The embellishments attached I moved onto the upper part of the bodice. The actor needed to be able to put the dress on and off quickly so I used a centre back zip. I toyed with ideas for the shoulders and ended up using a double layer of the blue tulle. This is sewn to the sweetheart neckline and the seam allowance topstitched down.

The skirt of this dress is multi layered tiers to create volume and a place to conceal the puppets. I used the lining from the Opp shop dress but it didn't have enough fabric for the outside layers so I got some blue glitter georgette from Tricia's Discount Fabrics in Adelaide. While glitter fabric looks great is sheds glitter all over the place including inside your sewing machine!

I cut circles from the glitter fabric in two different sizes. This gave me the long bottom layer and the top layer.

Getting a feel for the dress

At this stage the transition between the bodice and the blue glitter skirt didn't work for me so I added a ruffled layer of lace and tulle at the waist.

Sequin trim added to neckline to give it definition.

Motifs added to the waistline seam to blend it with the skirt.

the bodice shoulder seams are pinned ready for a fitting

I started with two cheerleader puppets the director sourced for me from America. I gave these girls a major facelift and turned them into divas!

Transforming a cheerleader

Hand sewn pink felt lips

circles cut from the back of the puppet and sewn to net

turned right side out

stuffed with wadding

pinned to puppet

hand sewn to puppet

Puppet bodice cut from lace

backed with net

sweetheart neckline

sequin embellishments added

fitting

more embellishments

Yes.... I gave a puppet a boob job!

Hair, makeup, costume...check!

The finished dress, I added sequin trim to the neckline and armholes.

3 tiered skirt with lace top layer

The puppets are sewn to a tube of fabric that acts like a glove. The tube is suspended from the top of the second tier of the skirt.

The tube is stiffened with buckram to maintain its shape otherwise the tube would collapse and the actor would not be able to locate it and slide their hand in to start the puppet dance.

The puppets hang upside down with he tube at their base, their skirts are weighted so they stay down fully and then when the puppet is righted the skirts fall dawn revealing the puppet.