I think it was Jim who first suggested the idea of a paired Dorothy/Roger Smith cosplay - for one, he was a big fan of the show, and second, a cosplay for Roger Smith would be fairly easy - black dress pants and shoes, white shirt, black tie, and a black double-breasted suit coat. I added a white ribbon stripe down the tie with fabric glue, then changed out the buttons on the coat, adding two more buttonholes and 4 more buttons to acheive Roger Smith's 8. Jim supplied his own gold cufflinks. I'm not sure how he styled his hair, but he did it himself and managed to get it to look remarkably like the anime Roger's stylized 'do. Jim also took his non-functional Russian KGB watch and painted Roger's Big O-summoning watchface on it.
Dorothy was nowhere so easy. I used 5 different Simplicity dress, skirt, and shirt patterns to develop the lines of the dress: two for the sleeves, two for the bodice, and one for the skirt, but all were heavily modified. The patterns were used only, really, to get the vague shapes and proportions in place.
The fabric is a thick black cotton twill - Dorothy belongs to Paradigm City's wealthiest bachelor and most succesful negotiator, and she would not be wearing anything cheap or thin, but it would still be sensible, as befits a servant. The white cuffs, collar, and scarf is a thinner white cotton with a subtle pinstripe design in the weave. Although this is not illustrated in the anime, I liked the fabric and kept being drawn back to it. I decided that Roger Smith, which his penchant for pinstripes (his butler, for example, wears pinstripe grey trousers), would approve, and Dorothy would prefer something a little less bland than plain white. Both of these fabrics came from Joann's.
I began with the skirt. It's an A-line style skirt which I made deliberately oversized in order to accomodate the pleats in the front.
Oh lord, the pleats. They were something like the death of me, sheesh. Thank the powers that be for my dressmaker's dummy, otherwise I would never have gotten them at the same shape, location, and angle, EVER. There are actually 4 pleats, two on each side folded towards each other to create the line. Unfortunately, these do have the tendancy to un-pleat down lower on the skirt when I'm walking. In order to take up the rest of the skirt slack around the waist line, there are an additional 6 or 8 darts at intervals around the waistline. In order to retain some of that "poof" in Dorothy's dress, I also inserted a full gathered underskirt.
The bodice is pretty close to a rather standard dress bodice, with darts to shape the breast line and 4 additional darts at the waist lined up to match the pleats in the front and two darts in the back. This was the costume of OMG CRAZY LOT OF DARTS - in that, I suppose, the bodice was unusual. I made it v-neck to accomodate the white collar. There is a black band, folded in half to about 3/4 or 1 inch in width, finishing the raw edge of the neckline. The bodice and the skirt are both attached to a waistband. There is a second waistband, lined with fusible interfacing, on the inside to cover the raw edges of the bodice bottom and skirt top, and to add a little more crispness to the lines of the dress and definition to the waistline.
I custom designed the cuffs. Dorothy is shown with a few different cuff styles, and I opted for the simple bell curve. I used 4 cuff pieces, a front and back for each with interfacing in between to keep them crisp. I put two buttonholes in each, at the edges, and made cufflinks out of 4 white buttons and several gold jump rings. Roger Smith is definitely a cufflink type of guy.
The collar presented several problems. The first I designed - slightly larger than the pattern - was too small, and the lapels too short, so I made another, attached to the top portion of a button-down shirt - sort of like a dickey, I guess (*tee hee* ... sorry.). The next problem was getting it to sit correctly inside the top of the dress, tacking it into place and sewing it in, then removing the extra shirt material, which I found was unnecessary.
The final problem was that it was a front-opening shirt on a back-opening dress. In order to get into the costume, I have to step into the dress, pull the collar over my head, insert my arms, and then zip up the back. Other than that initial awkwardness, the dress is very comfortable, and wears pretty much like actual clothing - one of my goals when I designed it.
The white scarf is a long rectangle which simply ties once at the neck and is pinned by a black brooch made from a button with a pinback glued to it. The button for the brooch matches the buttons used on the waistband above the skirt pleats.
Finally, I bought a black headband at Claire's, new black stockings (Amusingly enough, my usual stockings are cheap, and I decided too thin for Dorothy. It took cosplay for me to buy a decent pair of nylons!), and a small black purse. I realized that my Haruko cosplay had no way to carry the necessities of wallet, phone, etc, and I took that lesson to heart. A small, all-black, tastefully elegant purse for $10 at TJ Max was perfect. My old black flats - a little cracked, but worn enough to be comfortable for all day walking at a con - was the final piece to complete her.
I lied, actually: Two days before the con, I dyed my hair dark red. THAT was the last part to complete Dorothy. It was nice not to have to wear a wig.
This costume has appeared at: Anime Boston 07.
