With my tendancy to kill repurpose curtains, the curtain dress from The Carol Burnett Show “Went With the Wind” skit was always a dream costume for me. I’ve almost bought the civil war dress pattern several times, I just couldn’t bring myself to wear that many velvet curtains…it looks too uncomfortably hot to wear! So then an opportunity to create an Adidas costume mash-up presented itself, and I took it! Here’s how (and why) I made the costume…
Image: The Carol Burnett Show
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Adidas in our circle of friends has been an inside joke for several years, and I recently explained the origin story and outcome in a previous post. But the long story short (it’s really not that long, actually) is that my husband susprised me before a transatlantic flight wearing this blue monstrosity, and I haven’t been able to get away from it, or the support of our friends in this idiocy, ever since.
To annoy me and support his lunacy, our DragonCon friends planned an Adidas costume group for Sunday night of the convention. It’s usually hot and crowded so casual drinking attire is most welcome. Everyone was to wear a tracksuit. But I was not going to give in and buy a damn tracksuit. I did however get too tipsy at Thanksgiving and ordered a strapless Adidas jumpsuit, thinking if I had to play along I’d at least look less stupid. So tipsy, in fact, that the Adidas site was sold out of them, so I bought one from a seller in the U.K. on eBay…it felt like a black market deal gone way, way wrong. And took forever to get here. And was too damn short in the torso! You just can’t return these black market deals. So I was either going to be sporting a front wedgie or have a chesty wardrobe malfunction…neither would have been acceptable. So that’s when the Carol Burnett curtain dress idea hit me, and I would have my sweet surprising revenge on this gang of three-stripe wearing dingalings!
So I got to seam ripping the bottom half of the jumpsuit, cackling all the while at my evil plan. Wherever there was a hem or vertical seam (excluding the Adidas stripe down the sides), I ripped it open. The pants would become a skirt over a round hoop skirt.
I wanted a silly tasseled fascinator like the original, so I ordered a child size Adidas hat, removed the adjustible back, closed it up like a cone, and hot glued tassel trim around the bottom. I also attached the hat to a headband to keep it firmly in place on my head.
Hat: adidas Youth Kids-Boy’s/Girl’s / Superlite Relaxed Adjustable Performance Cap, Black/White, ONE SIZE
Tassel trim: 10 Yard Value Pack|2.5 Inch Bullion Fringe Trim|Style EF25 Color: A1 – White|9.5 Meters / 30 Ft
Headband: Anna Belen “London” Satin Headband O/S
The original curtain dress, rod and all, are at the Smithsonian, and can be viewed here. I made my curtain overlay almost exactly like the original with minimal sewing and a lot of hot gluing. I used tasseled curtain tie backs as the belt, and modified a posture corrector as a harness to keep the rod in place on my back. This all went together in one evening, so quickly I didn’t even bother with taking progress pictures.
Curtains: Linen Textured Sheer Curtains for Bedroom Curtain 63 inches Long Rod Pocket Window Curtain for Living Room 2 Panels Burgundy
Rod: Kenney Baldwin Standard Decorative Window Curtain Rod, 28 to 48-Inch, Antique Pewter
With the curtains out of the way, I needed to fill in the bell skirt. I bought about 2 yards jersey knit and sewed triangles in between the pant strips. It looks really silly by itself but with the curtains over it, you can’t really tell it used to be a jumpsuit.
Back before I knew the jumpsuit would be too short and stupid, I found some matching Adidas shoes at DSW and a Posh Spice style wig at a shop in Houston. I just needed some equally ridiculous tassel earrings, which I found on Amazon in black.
And off to DragonCon 2019 I went! It took some help getting strapped into this contraption, but it was so worth seeing the look of shock on my husband’s tracksuit wearing acolytes. And SO MUCH FUN to wear! Weird mash-up cosplays are usually embraced at DragonCon, so I fit right in. True Carol Burnett fans immediately “got it” and others loved it but needed an explaination. Oh, and I’m sorry to anyone I took out with the curtain rod (mainly my husband, who may or may not have deserved it for even starting this mess).
“I saw it in the window and I just couldn’t resist it.” – Carol Burnett as Starlet
from The Carol Burnett Show, Went with the Wind!, 1976
You are absolutely brilliant and hilarious. Love it!
LOL!! Thank you Shawn! *ear tug*