Breakdown:
Padmé wears this Purple evening gown in Star Wars The Clone Wars, Season 2 Episode 4, Senate Spy. If looking for a very sexual costume from Star Wars without the problematic issues of Slave Leia, then this might be a good choice.
(In summery: Slave Leia is problematic when taken out of it’s story context as a position that Leia is forced into by Jabba. The difference between Padmé and Leia wearing sex-ulized outfits is consent. Padmé elects to wear her revealing clothing Leia does not.)
Because this dress only appears in cartoon form there will have to be some adjusting to translate into the real world. It can be easy to translate cartoons into the real world exactly, however, this often times can looks very cartoonish and if that is not the aim isn’t important to pay attention to the details. Being careful of watching proportions so that translating it into the real world looks good. Also consider that all of these proportions will have to be adjusted for each individual Padmé.
Fabric:
Because it is a cartoon that is specifically designed to look like painted wooded puppet, the fabric Padmé’s dress is made out of is difficult to figure out. The dress seems to be made out of a fairly heavy fabric the way it moves, the dress appears to be made out of a semi shiny fabric, such as a heavy satin. The gown color is a dark dusky purple, there is a light purple color on the front of her dress that makes up the symbols on her gown. (Because its used so widely in Star Wars, silk would be a good fabric to use for this dress, silk often times has a semi shiny look while not being overly lustrous.)
(A possible fabric for making this gown might be Silk Crepe De Chine, as its a light silk fabric with a lot of drape and movement, it was also used in Leia’s Classic Political Gown in A New Hope 🙂 )
Dress Skirt:
Padmé’s purple Clone Wars evening gown has a fishtail skirt, also known as a mermaid skirt. Padmé’s dress also appears to has a narrow ‘A’ line skirt, meaning that the skirt of the dress does not fit tightly around her legs, instead it it snug around the hips and follows an ‘A’ shape down to the hem. (Note: That the ‘A’ line dress, is a more narrow ‘A’ line so it resembles a closer fitting fishtail dress.)
Padmé’s evening gown also has a clear train, the train is noticeable, however, it is not very long. a good estimate would be a little over a foot so many 14″ for the train. this of course depending on each individual Padmé.
Padmé’s skirt is very full, there is a lot of fabric moving when she comes down the stairs, the fishtail part of the skirt which is the widest part of the dress is very full.
Padmé’s dress also goes all the way down to the floor and her shoes cannot be seen when she is standing. The floor length of the dress seems to be just touching the floor in front and a small but significant train in the back.
Bodice:
The bodice of Padmé’s dress has a slight sweetheart neckline, the bodice also does not come up very high on her chest.
The bodice appears to come up to roughly top of the triceps below Padmé’s shoulder,
Padmé’s bodice is open on the side, there is no back to her dress, the bodice comes completely around her breast and onto the side of her ribs (see green line for edge of breast and pink line for edge of dress in picture below).
The bodice of Padmé’s dress is also very structured, from the top down to the bottom of her rib-cage. The bodice hugs closely to her body, until the bottom of her ribs, then the fabrics of her dress becomes somewhat less structured and is looser and has a very slight drape around her lower back and side (see blue arrows for drape of fabric in picture below).
Back:
The gaping between Padmé’s dress and her back is more obvious in the picture below, however, note: that the gaping in not very much just enough to tell that the dress is not structured in its lower half.
There is no back too Padmé’s gown, Padmé’s dress comes down very low into a soft round shape. The dress back is lower then Padmé’s natural waist, and appears to show her upper lower back, much like her lake dress from Attack of the Clones. (See blue line for bottom edge of dress, green for waist and red for shape of back of Padmé’s dress.)
Gloves/Sleeves:
The gloves that Padmé wears with her evening gown also double as sleeves, these gloves have a cut out that is the shape of an rectangle with rounded ends. The top of the cut outs on the sleeves falls in line the middle of Padmé’s chest. The bottom of the cut outs on Padmé’s gloves falls roughly in line between the bottom of Padmé’s rib cage, and her natural waist, the cut outs also end several inches above the elbow.
Padmé’s gloves are cut very high, the fabric goes up to her underarm but does not attack to the dress in any way and also does not have a lot of extra fabric there.
The top of Padmé’s glove is a rounded shape that comes up over her shoulders, the sleeves also seem to be structured. Note: that the rounded top of the sleeve that covers Padmé’s shoulder is flush to her body. This indicates a form of structure that also allows glove to stay in place on her arm, (see blue arrow). The lower half that comes around the under Padmé’s arm is not flush with her arm, (see green arrow).
Padmé’s gloves also have a detail on the top rounded part that covers her shoulders, it appears to be cut wide enough to allow for several small folds to occur through the structured part of the glove. almost reminiscent of a very, very slightly puffed sleeve (see link for reference image of puffed sleeve).
Hair:
Padmé’s hair is styles in a simple three strand braid down from the base of her back and down her back, the braid falls down to middle of Padmé’s back. Her braid is fastened at the end if a apparently metal semi cone shaped decorative fastener.
Shoes:
The Shoes that Padmé wears with her evening gown are the same color of purple as her gown. though it is hard to see it appears that she has a squared/rounded toe to her shoe, in the lower second picture vaguely appears to be middle average in height high heals, or more accurately pumps they appear to have some kind of back to them.
Details:
Padmé’s dress has seven symbols on the front of it in descending size and order from her lower abdomen.
Padmé carries a bag with her evening gown, one of the few times she is ever seen with a bag. Her clutch bag is the matched to her dress and is the same purple color with silver accents like her hair fastener.
- ‘A’ Line Skirt
- Pinterest: Puffed Sleeves
- Images From: Cap-That.com
- Images From: StarWars.com
- Washington Post: Slave Leia Bikini
- i09: Lucas On Star Wars The Clone Wars
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