Peli Motto: The Teal Dicky

Most women who watch The Mandalorian and cosplay would chose to make a Cara Dune costume, and while that also might be me (I’ll come back to that later), I love love love Peli Motto even more. This spicy space mechanic, played by Amy Sedaris if you squint, repairs ships at the spaceport of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine, and showed up for the first time in chapter 5 of season 1. By the time she showed up again in chapter 9 and 10 of season 2, I was ordering orange coveralls on Amazon, completely consumed by making her costume. But first, this post focuses on the teal shirt (or dicky, aka false shirtfront) underneath. Here’s how I made it…

[Related: Peli Motto: The Coveralls, Peli Motto: The Finishing Touches, and Costuming Peli Motto from The Mandalorian]

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Currently there are no official 501st/Rebel Legion (organizations dedicated to the construction and wearing of screen-accurate Star Wars replica costumes) standards for this costume, so I’m going on screenshots and my skill level alone. But for me, this costume isn’t intended to be 501st/RL approvable, just a fun “close enough” costume intended for costume conventions and May the Fourth parties, in hopes that my friends that are in these organizations won’t be embarrased to be seen with me. The silly wig and my terrible dancing will be a different story though…lol!

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Updated 2/1/21: I ended up joining Rebel Legion and submitted this costume, and I’m proud to report it has been the first Peli Motto approved in the Legion! Thank the Force! Looking forward to Kessel Base troops in the Houston area when it is safe to gather in person again.

Only a small bit of the front neckline is visible, and the conventions I usually attend are in warm climates (looking at you, DragonCon), so I chose to make a dicky instead of a full shirt. To keep things simple, I chose a teal t-shirt of 100% cotton that I cut down to become the dicky, bias/piping tape, and for the details on the front. Amazon had a super cheap pack of 2 shirts for well under $10, so I purchased the pack in case I screwed up what seemed easy in my mind. I prewashed both shirts, seam-ripped the elastic neck, cut off the sleeves to use for the detailing, cut the shirt open at each side, and cut the bottom half of the shirt in strips to use for piping. Spoiler alert: I didn’t screw up so I only needed 1 shirt and my husband didn’t want the other one so…the link to 1 shirt is below.

Shirt: Gildan mens Ultra Cotton 6 oz. T-Shirt(G200)-GALAPAGOS BLUE-L

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To me, the front detailing looked like an inverted and asymmetrical rainbow in 3 parts. I put on my coveralls and measured the open space at my neck, and from there I drafted a pattern for the detailing. The pattern was used to cut the 3 parts from one of the sleeves, and I allowed extra space vertically above each piece to allow for a curved neckline. Using supplies from my stash, I used leftover yarn as piping for the strips I cut from the bottom of the t-shirt.

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I made the 3 triangle parts independently, then stacked them using the pattern I drafted. This ended up working really well. Not perfect, but it really shouldn’t be. Normally at this point I would digitize the pattern to share, but it really was easy to draft, and I think for anyone else making this costume, the scaling depends on your size and coveralls opening.

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From the largest triangle to the smallest, I stitched in the piping ditch to attach each part to the shirt, cut the excess off (using my drafted pattern), and closed the neckline using a strip as bias tape. Looks good, doesn’t it?

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I used additional strips to trim the arm holes/sides and bottom edges (because t-shirt material will curl), and stitched velcro to make the side closures adjustable. Now onto the weathering…

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Tea staining is fun, cheap, easy, and instantly dulls/darkens natural fabrics. So I gave the dicky a little steep in some hot black tea, then threw the dicky in the dryer. In the image above right, you can see an unstained strip of t-shirt fabric on top of the stained dicky. The difference is subtle, but I like it!

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Keeping in mind Tatooine is hot, dry, and our favorite space mechanic wears the same thing in every scene, her neckline is probably as salty and oily as her personality…so I mixed a little olive oil with a cup of water and brush painted the mixture on and around the neckline and piping. Then I dunked the dicky in water so the capillaries could spread the oil and water a bit, and threw the dicky back in the dryer. And that’s a wrap!

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Up next are the modifications and weathering for her coveralls, finishing touches (accessories, wig, greeblies), and photos of the entire costume on me.

“How much do you want for it? Just kidding. But not really.”  – Peli Motto

from The Mandalorian

Other Peli Motto posts on Red Shoes. Red Wine.

Peli Motto: The Coveralls

Peli Motto: The Finishing Touches

Costuming Peli Motto from The Mandalorian

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