To that end, after going to 40 or so fabric stores downtown, I settled on a green and white striped outdoor fabric - a medium weight canvas -rather than trying to match his dress exactly. I loved looking like I should be an awning or umbrella instead of a dress. I'd never sewn anything with a bodice like that before, but used high-res photographs from sparklies.org (originally linked from BPR!), and just draped and pinned it on my own body to make it work. The zippers are all there -and, as a bit of humor, I left the sliders on the zippers, and in theback of the dress (not shown, unfortunately), left the tail ends of the zippers hanging down as if they were a ribbon-like detail. Finally, I made the skirt much more full while preserving the horizontal stripe - both as a method of hinting at having more feminine hips, but also because the extreme fullness of the skirt is funnier.
In true Project Runway fashion, all of the patterning and the sewing of the dress took about 14 hours total. Needless to say, I was thrilled with the results - and tons of people on Santa Monica Blvd. got it right away!
I debated going in drag, but decided that going as Jeffrey, in his own dress, would be that much more ridiculous and hilarious. The most important part of Jeffrey's costume was the neck tattoo - along with some indication of his other tattoos. I used a Chartpak colorless transfer marker with a xylene based solvent to transfer the tattoos -normal xerox copies - to my skin. The neck tattoo, seen in photo 3, says Harrison Detroit (of course), but also other PR-isms like "faux bois", and Italian approximations of "Make it work!" and "Carry on!". There are other flourishes, and - my favorite random phrase - "Crack is whack!" This, of course, from a Jeffrey Sebelia wearing a dress and drinking from a red Solo cup.
Rather than copying his arm tattoos, I went for something much more fun - the PR logo on each forearm (photo 5), and Heidi on one bicep and Tim Gunn on the other (photos 2 and 4, respectively). These always got hysterical laughter and amazement.
To complete the look, a poorly cut wig fashioned into a demi-mullet, a pair of combat boot heels (Jeffrey would wear combat boots, but you've got to have the heels to make the dress move right!), a smattering of chest hair, a pair of wrap around sunglasses, and a lot of attitude -he's got MAD SKILLS, after all - and a dress-wearing Jeffrey Sebelia came to life!
I hope you all enjoy the costume as much as I did. As a shout out to Laura Bennett - I'm an architect as well, and it was great to pull out my sewing machine and make it work! Carry on!
Cheers, Pete Wilson
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