Catching Fire Effie (Mother) and Katniss (Daughter) Costumes
These costumes were definitely the most ambitious ones I’ve made yet. I already made an Effie Trinket costume from the first Hunger Games movie so when I saw Effie’s butterfly costume, I knew I just had to make it. All those butterflies! Gorgeous!
So, the research began almost a year ago. First to source the butterflies, screenshots of the dress, gloves, material and parts to make the hat. Once my costume materials started coming in from various sources, I set to work making the underdress. It’s just a simple black dress made from a pattern I created. Then the hard part began: gluing all the butterflies in a movie accurate pattern. First all the wings had to be carefully removed from the butterfly bodies. One by one, I compared the placement of butterflies on the movie-version of the derss and glued them onto my dress as closely as possible. The 3-D butterflies around the neck and shoulders are hot glued on. The hat was made from whole butterflies and floral wire. Paper butterflies were glued to my arms (same as the movie) and face. One eye had the same fancy eyelashes as used in the movie. The wig is the “official” Effie Trinket wig sold for Halloween. Overall, 30 dozen butterflies were used, consisting of over 700 wings made up of over 4000 hand-painted feathers.
Katniss’s wedding dress was an even bigger accomplishment for me. As an amateur sewer, I was not sure if I could create such an impressive haut couture gown. So again I set to work doing as much research as possible into materials and techniques used to make the dress. I watched videos, read articles, interviews, and gathered as many photos of the dress as possible. Then the sewing began! First, a satin underdress was created with a built in crinoline (a separate petticoat was also made for extra poof). On top of the dress, I created two layers of ruffles which was made up of several rows of velvet trim, lace trim and ruffled tulle. The bodice has more ruffled tulle and velvet and lace trim. In the movie, the top part of the dress was covered in laser-cut organza feathers. Not having access to a laser cutter, I chose to use real feathers instead, cut to the correct shape. My daughter and son created the metal cage “flames” out of Worbla, painted silver and covered with hundreds of clear crystals. The effect was simply breathtaking. Overall, this dress used 300 yards of tulle,100 yards of trim,1500 rhinestones, 22 yards of ruffles, and 4 doz feathers.
I love wearing my Effie Trinket butterfly costume with my daughter as Katniss. The response we get from people at conventions is priceless. Everyone is so happy to see the movie costumes come to life and we posed for many many photos, always with a Capital smile. The best part was seeing the smiles of other’s – that made all the hard work worthwhile!
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