Making a chemise for a Caterina Sforza dress, based off the concept art for Assassin’s Creed II. I decided to have a little fun with it and try my hand at flat-felled seams and gusseted sleeves, as well as a slash opening at the breast. I don’t usually get to do that kind of stuff :)
Most chemises should go to the floor, but mine is butt length only because it takes less fabric and is one less layer under the skirt!
- Jenn
Ooooh boy.
So I’m working on that costume, too, as you may know. I’m currently putting it on hold until 2014 solely because I don’t think I have the funds right now to do it the way I want, but I do have a fair amount of work done in the sense that I have drafted the jacket and doublet w/ hood, which makes up most of his costume.
I’m going to be pretty straight with you in that it’s going to be very hard for you to repurpose, and that it’s pretty hard to make from scratch, let alone draft yourself. The easy way of doing it (which I presume is what you’re looking for) wouldn’t be the most accurate solution, but it might be better if you were even considering refashioning a coat.
Let’s see if I can break this down in text:
Ezio’s “coat” is actually two pieces. The bottom layer is the jacket, which is essentially a coat with all the layered “tails” on the bottom, one layer of sleeves, and a big collar. Worn over that is the doublet, which is the shorter jacket with the armored top sleeves/shoulder pieces and the attached hood — it does not have a collar. You can sort of see what I mean in this post, and my doodles of how I considered drafting the pieces.
I also posted a picture of my hood pattern here and my jacket pattern here. There’s also pictures of one of my rough jacket mockups (which was later revised, as seen in the post with the finalized pattern.) I do not have pictures of the finished doublet pattern, but that’s because I am still hemming and hawing over finalized versions.
Now: if you don’t have much sewing experience, I don’t know how well you’d fare at aping my patterns from those pictures (much less doing it without seeing final products to tell whether you even like my interpretation!) As such, the best advice I can really give to make an “easier” version is to look into commercial patterns. Butterick 4574 could plausibly be altered by closing up the neckline a bit and giving it the “tails” at the bottom, then make and alter Simplicity 4059’s doublet for the doublet, adding a hood. (Or you could use the same Simplicity pattern to make the jacket, too, just making the longer coat.) Simplicity 3519 also has a decent shirt pattern for Ezio, too.
Alternately, I believe God Save The Queen Fashions will be (or is?) selling an AC2 Ezio pattern. She does absolutely stunning, stunning work, I really can’t speak higher of it, but the pattern will probably run you at least $50 and I don’t know what kind of instructions are included. :) You can see her finished Ezio here.
Hope that helps, and I’m sorry that I don’t have more to offer right now. Hopefully within the next year I’ll have a thick and dedicated stack of information for people on making AC2 Ezio costumes.
- Jenn
Playing dress up is 300% better when cosplay is involved. (Taken with Instagram)
Aww yeah Maya in my courtesan costume :’) I want to make more of these so I can have a whole army of courtesans.
It was revealed that in Liberation, Assasin’s Creed’s first female protagonist, Aveline de Grandpre, would have access to various costume changing areas throughout New Orleans, which would allow her to change her garb to allow easier access to restricted areas. While it is kind of annoying that the girl of course gets this feature, and yes one of the costume options is for a slave or servant, I’m not terribly up in arms about it, at least not as much as a lot of people seem to be. Here’s why.
This is literally the silliest complaint I’ve ever seen out of this fandom. A black woman donning the outfit of a servant, starting a riot and then kicking the ever-loving shit out of an oppressor/tyrant/slave-owner and liberating people is a dozen kinds of awesome. It’s not shameful or insulting for her to dress like a servant or slave, it’s shameful and insulting that people are enslaved. Slavery was (and is) a reality. The entire plot of the game seems to revolve around the liberation of enslaved peoples. To espouse that storyline but then insist that at no time the protagonist — a black woman! — ever be visually depicted as being amongst the people she’s trying to liberate is unpleasant.
And that said, Ezio had at least 15 costume changes/disguises/whatever over the course of his games, not including the large spectrum of superficial palette-swaps you could do to this clothing. Aveline having a diverse and practical set of outfits that have different advantages to her is worlds more progressive and useful than Ezio “This Would Look Great In Purple” Auditore’s costume wheel. He also worked very closely with thieves in a time period where “thief” was literally the worst insult you could ever call a man.
And all that said, I’m so psyched for this game!
- Jenn
At FanExpo 2012, a certain Assassin handed me a card that stated I was entitled to a free copy of AC3. It had no instructions and no directions on how to redeem it, only a link to a cryptic website. At the time I thought it was way too good to possibly be true, but I decided to investigate the card and find out what it was all about. As it turns out, this shit is fucking legit. Thank you, FanExpo Canada, for making this awesome madness happen, oh my goddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd.
- Jenn
A BuyCostumes.com catalogue happened to show up at my house.
I screamed inwardly.
“Officially licensed” ugh.
Now that the main pieces are done, I just have to work on accessories… silk roses, pearls, armlets, costume jewelry, decorating the wig, etceteras. Gonna be fun!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been sewing for eight hours and need to get some food in me.
- Jenn
Jenn, you should just come down to my house. like right now. I just made the most stupidly ridiculous garlic and pepper infused pasta ever for dinner tonight. I thought of you the entire time I was making it.
-Christine.
Oh my goddddd how could you tell me that, I haven’t eaten yet today and now I’m going to make… plain pasta with cheese, goddamn.
- Jenn
Lace added, waistband added (and redone…) Now all I have to do is the bodice to go overtop the bustier, and the sleeves… then I can go wild with decorating it with silk roses and pearls and gold!
And then I am going to walk around being all “MMM WHAT A NICE TIGHT BUTT” and “CIAO, BELLO” tee-hee.
- Jenn
Today was a terrible day in some ways and a great day in others, but at least I got some sewing done.
This skirt looks very, very silly without a petticoat under it, but sadly mine is at my parents’ house, so it’ll have to wait until later. Until now, here’s a courtesan’s skirt from Assassin’s Creed. I’ve since added a waistband, and I’ll be picking up lace on Wednesday to trim it up and decorate it… and then it’s on to the bodice.
I’m definitely thinking silk roses and pearl strands, too. I’m doing it more like the concept art than the in-game models, as the in-game models are a little drab… gonna be the most expensive courtesan that Renaissance Italy never saw, lmao.
- Jenn
