The Merida Cosplay - part 3 (underdress)

Step 4 - underdress

Before finishing the overdress completely I wanted to make the underdress so that I could try the dress on with the correct "underwear" and trim the neckline to fit. The underdresses of this time were most likely linen, but you can also use a sheet. The pattern is fairly simple and there are a ton of free patterns to find online. It's basically some squares and triangles with a hole for the head. These patterns will give you something that is historically correct, but perhaps somewhat bulky.

The finished underdress

I went slightly more fancy and draped the front- and backpieces on my dress form to get a good fit. I oversized the sleeves so that I could get some extra fabric to pop out at the shoulders and wrists. Just enlargen the sleeve pieces so that they are maybe 10-15 cm wider at the shoulder side than the shoulder hole. Put lots of pins in them and make small wrinkles as you sew. I put all the wrinkles in the top half of the sleeve.

With the sleeves attached, I then tried them on, put some pins in them and cut away to a rougly triangular shape. I underestimated how much fabric the pop-outs would eat lenght-wise, but I fixed this later by attaching wristpieces to the ends of the sleeves.

Merida's underdress looks to be of a larger sort, with a rouched bodice. This is a bit overkill in the sewing-machine era, since this method really eats fabric and most of it will be covered. If you plan to rouche the whole thing, you need to make the body very wide. I went for a more form-fitting bodice and then I made a wrinkled neck-outlay that I simply sewed on around the neckline. It ended up looking fine.

Closeup of the neck outlay

Merida also has rouching along the sleeves, but you don't need to do that. With tight outer sleeves and somewhat bigger underdress sleeves, they will wrinkle themselves when you pull them out and the hand will keep them in place. Doing wrinkles along the wrist will only make it feel bulky. When I lenghtened the sleeve, I make the wristpiece a little wider than the sleeve to get some extra wrinkling when it pops out at the hand. It won't fall out terribly long, just a little bit to give a hint at the wrist. I hand-sewed the wrist-seams, since they will be sticking out and I didn't want machine-seams showing.

Closeup of the wristpiece

All in all, my underdress ended up being very comfortable and it saves me from the itch of the wool. It is somewhat form-fitting, mainly in the shoulders/chest-area. It is not quite as wide as the overdress, but nor does it need to be. I can absolutely use this again in other projects, since the only Merida-specific thing with this underdress is the wrinkled neckline and since it is sewn-on I can easily remove it if I want to make a simpler neckline later.

Some hints and tips for this step: 

You definately do not need to pay for a pattern to make this! This is midieval underwear. You can figure it out from free patterns available online on basically any mideival fan-site. You can trace a pattern off a nightgown, cut out squares in approximate sizes... it's very very easy. The only difficult part is sewing the neckline and fitting the shoulders, but you will have those issues whether you have a "real" pattern or not. Two big sqares become the front and back. Two smaller squares are the sleeves, which you can trim down. Use the scrap fabric to make trim for neck and wrists. Don't be stingy with the sleeves - make 'em bigger and longer than you need! It's easier to trim down than to lenghten. That's it. Keep it simple. It's an undergarment, after all.

Make the underdress so big that you can get into it without closures, but not so big that it feels bulky. Having lacing or a zipper is neither necessary nor recommended. 

If you are on a budget, use an old white sheet for the body and if possible pimp the visible parts with a nicer fabric. It's totally OK to use sheet-fabric for the body and linen for the sleeves and neckline.

Most of the dress will be invisible, but if you want to put some extra effort into making it look nice, put some handstitching into the wrist- and necklines.

Fit the shoulders well! The flat part of the shoulder should be so high that it's mostly (or completely) the sleeve-part that shows in the overdress gaps. Put some time into that.

That's it for the underdress!