Sew an adult Santa Claus costume with your own hands: pattern, diagrams and description

All artists performing on stage or in the arena want to look chic and unique, but where can you find a suit that will make you look like a king? Even if you find it, the cost of a unique, avant-garde suit created by a professional designer is always high. Even if you found a photo of such a suit and brought it to the studio, not every studio will take the job and be able to sew it. In this article I will tell and show you how to make an original, avant-garde bodysuit from the now popular mirror fabric, as well as where to buy such a popular material and how to work with it.

Preparing the decor

This suit is quite difficult to sew and get ready for a lot of manual work, the suit is almost 80% assembled by hand, so it can be called “Haute couture”.

Since I made this costume without a sketch or any sketch, I only had a mental picture of what kind of costume I wanted to sew, so first of all I cut out leaves or feathers as I call them from gold lacquer of different sizes.

To make the petals look more finished, I sewed a straight decorative stitch along the edge of each petal, as in my opinion, without a stitch along the edge, this material looks somehow loose and the leaf seems unfinished. In addition, we will then need to somehow sew these petals to the body, and then these decorative stitches will come in handy.

I did the decorative stitching on an industrial sewing machine “Juki” for heavy fabrics; it can be done on a household one, but the stitching on an industrial one is of better quality. I used the needle for leather and the thread for jeans. I also used a Teflon foot.

Next, I took a mannequin and began to pin petals on it. I started pinning from the shoulders and realized that only small petals are not enough for me, I also need long, large petals for my shoulders. And since the gold lacquer is black on the reverse side, and I wanted both sides to be gold, I glued two petals together and stitched them together on a sewing machine. The petals were glued together with “UHU” fabric glue.

After voluminous and fluffy shoulders, I began to highlight the waist and hips with small petals, folding them like a fan.

What materials will be needed to sew a Santa Claus costume?

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It is important that the materials must be of high quality so that the costume lasts a long time and decorates more than one holiday and can be lent to friends and acquaintances for matinees. If the holiday involves going outside, it makes sense to duplicate the Santa Claus costume for an adult with a lining with quilted padding. For an indoor event, you can choose a lighter fabric. Here we will describe a lightweight version of sewing a Santa Claus costume with your own hands.

To sew a Santa Claus costume for an adult you will need:

• A piece of fabric. On average you will need 3-3.5 meters. Velor, satin, velvet, thin drape, flannel and even silk are suitable. The latter material is worth choosing if your budget allows it and you are willing to spend extra time cutting this capricious material.
• Silver or gold threads for embroidery. As an alternative, you can find ready-made embroidery (a longer option), braid or wide lace with snowflakes, suitable for a Santa Claus costume for an adult.
• White faux fur, it is better to give preference to short-haired fur. The decor will take about 1 meter.
• Standard sewing supplies for work.
• Additional decor at your discretion. Thus, silver embroidery can be complemented with threads imitating freshwater pearls.

Sewing body and frame

Now we move on to sewing a flesh-colored bodysuit. In the shoulders I made a frame base from regilin, covered with supplex, to which the long petals will be attached; without a frame they will fall off very quickly, and the stage costume must be strong and serve the artist for many years, so we make everything strong and reliable.

This is where the decorative stitches on the petals came in handy. Felt-based varnish is a very dense material, it is very difficult to pierce it with a pin or needle, and besides, we cannot pierce it with pins because the pins leave holes that will not disappear anywhere. The material cannot be steamed with an iron; the gold becomes cloudy and covered with cracks. Therefore, I pinned the petals to the body with pins at these decorative seams, and then we will sew them along these seams. In some places I even had to glue the petals with masking tape.

In the process, I realized that the petals at the waist and hips, just like at the shoulders, need to be sewn onto a frame base, and not onto the body itself. If you sew the petals to the bodysuit, it stops stretching.

I roughly outlined where I needed the frame lines and how long. We tighten the regiline with supplex in the same way as we tightened the frame at the shoulders.

Then I started sewing the petals to the shoulders and waist. The petals are difficult to sew on by hand, I already wrote above that it is very difficult to pierce this fabric with a needle, moreover, in some places it is also double, and besides, the petals had to be firmly sewn to the regiline. Regiline varnish is so difficult to pierce that I broke a lot of needles in the process.

Next, I began to decorate the costume with petals along the hip line, and in the process it became clear that I needed more frame lines.

After I prepared the entire frame, I sewed all the petals along the hips and back.

Step-by-step plan for sewing a Santa Claus costume for an adult

In total, the pattern will take about two to three hours if you prepare everything you need in advance. The longest process will be decorating a Santa Claus costume for an adult, but the overall perception of the image depends on this stage.

1. Take measurements of the future Santa Claus. To create a pattern you will need: shoulder width, fur coat length, sleeve length and chest circumference.
2. Adjust the pattern to the required dimensions and attach it to the fabric with pins. Indicate the shape of the pattern itself and a margin of 2 cm (if you are working with bulk materials such as silk and velvet, then it is better to take a margin of 3 cm).
3. Cut out the pieces and pin them together to try on the model. Adjust the pattern if necessary.
4. Connect all the parts. You need to work especially carefully with the sleeves; they need to be connected along the inside seam.
5. Finish all seams and iron the product.
6. Sew faux fur onto the collar and sleeves.
7. If desired, you can decorate the transition between fur and fabric with gold or silver braid.

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Headdress

I made a headdress for the costume, following the same principle as the bodysuit. I made a headband from two strips of regiline, covered with supplex, and sewed three petals on it covered with rhinestones with a 20ss crystal.

Voila! My unique costume is ready! The bodysuit with golden petals turned out to be very unusual and impressive, despite the fact that this costume is very light and durable, it is easy to put on and it is very comfortable not only to move around the stage or arena, you can even perform acrobatic stunts in it.

I sewed this suit for quite a long time due to the fact that most of the work was done by hand, I did not plan this, but despite the large amount of time spent, the result exceeded all my expectations and was worth all my torment, as well as the pierced fingers.

Thank you for reading my article! I hope that you found it useful and interesting. Next time I will show you another stage costume where I used this gold material, and I will also tell you how I made it

DIY beetle costume for a boy, patterns

A vest pattern without side seams is a universal basis for any carnival costume.

The simplest pants with an elastic band can be sewn using this pattern.

Summer option - shorts with elastic bands.

Pattern for a hat in case you don’t have a ready one at hand.

Pattern for a button-down vest with a chest pocket for the smartest bugs.

Our advantages

• No prepayment
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How to choose a hat with a veil

Stylists have their own secrets for choosing a hat, and combination with clothes of a certain style is not the only criterion here.

1. For a wide face with large features, a hat with the brim turned up is suitable.
2. An elongated and thin face requires a hat with a wide brim and a flat crown.
3. For snub-nosed lovers of hats with a veil, you should choose a hood-shaped style.
4. A pillbox hat covered with a veil is a universal option, as it suits almost any face type.
5. For tall girls, a hat with a flat crown and wide brim will help to visually correct their height.
6. Hats with mesh and a high crown (cylinder type) are suitable for petite girls.

Finishing touches

Dress your child in clothes of the same color. I chose neutral black. Accessorize as needed. Play with the details, but remember that a six-year-old girl who wants to be a cockchafer can probably just get into character. The parts must be very well secured so that nothing is damaged at least until the matinee, and then it will be possible to come up with another costume.

Just look at the photographs, how happy the child is, but he doesn’t need much for this.

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A team from Brest creates fabulous costumes for world stars

Their suits are bought all over the world. Clients include British rock bands Take That, Muse and even the famous singer and actress Miley Cyrus. Their costumes create a sensation at exhibitions and fashion shows because they literally look bright and unusual. Products are made from mirrors and LEDs that create a unique light and music rhythm or can even broadcast video. And such unusual costumes are created not somewhere in Europe, in America, but here in Brest in the creative workshop of the ETEREshop company. Read more in the MediaBrest . by .

In the very center of Brest there is a building in which unique mirror and LED costumes are created. Just imagine that several thousand mirrors and several thousand LEDs were glued into a single whole. And all this by hand! And LED outfits also, depending on the client’s wishes, shimmer in different colors or broadcast any picture.

ETEREshop ships up to 10 costumes daily. Although the number is not a constant. There may be more orders. Today, all this is done by a team of 50 people. But once upon a time it all started with one idea and just two people - Sergei Voitovich and Marina Goretskaya.

Sergei Voitovich and Marina Goretskaya

Tell us how it all started? How long has your company been in business?

— Sergei and I are former artists. They started with a fiery one, and then performed a neon show. We had our own team in Brest. Then we worked abroad for a long time. In 2012 we decided to settle in Minsk. They created a band there and performed at various events. But a crisis came. There are fewer orders from artists. But we always made all the costumes for the performances ourselves - from mirrors and LEDs. I actively published all our works on my Facebook page. People asked where we bought the costumes? They explained that we do everything ourselves. And we began to receive requests to make a similar costume, first for one, then for another... Gradually, we had fewer performances, but more and more orders for costumes. Slowly, priorities changed: one fine day we stopped performing and started focusing only on creating costumes. The company was registered in 2013. We didn't plan to create a company. It all happened by accident. It turned out that the hobby grew into a business. Since 2022 - residents of the Brest Technopark.

Tell us how everything developed at the first stage? Was it hard?

— As soon as the company was created, I created pages on social networks and an online store. And it so happened that we immediately began to focus on selling our suits to the American market. The USA is in a different time zone, so customers most often wrote at night. And around midnight, messages began to arrive on my phone. I got up and responded to client messages until about 4 am. Then I went to bed again for a couple of hours. In the morning we got up and started making costumes according to the orders that I placed at night. At that time, seamstresses were already working with us, sewing everything together, and Sergei and I were already gluing mirrors or installing LEDs and programming them. They worked like this all day: creating, packaging and shipping. At night I again answered messages and placed orders. This went on for quite a long time.

Mirror costumes “Mirror Man” and “Mirror Lady”
Where do unusual costume ideas come from?
- Differently. Sometimes clients come to us with ready-made ideas. Or they have sketches, and then the image is completed in the head of Sergei and the illustrator designers. And the very idea of ​​​​creating such costumes for performances is also Sergei’s idea. In general, a mirror suit was made for the first time in 2011 by an American. And two years later we repeated his version, only from an acrylic mirror. We ourselves developed the “Mirror Man” model, which sells well here. LED suits are not new either. But we were able to do it in our original format. And the technologies are the same everywhere.

Aren't your suits heavy?

— One mirror suit weighs around 12-13 kg, depending on the size. The artist does not feel this weight on himself: it is distributed throughout the body. LED suits are much lighter. All our products are put on in parts.

How long does it take to create one costume?

— We have costumes that are created on the production line. The client sends his measurements and we make an outfit to suit him. But at the same time, the technology is so developed that a mirror suit can be made in a week, or even in 5 days. It still depends on how many people are working on one suit. Previously, we created such a product in two weeks. There are a lot of orders now. Therefore, we try to optimize the process and do everything faster.

Where do you get all the necessary raw materials for costumes?

— We order from abroad. They bring us tons of mirrors and thousands of LEDs. And the rest of the process takes place here. We cut the mirrors into pieces ourselves, glue everything together, hang it, mount it, program it...

How many LEDs does one costume require?

- Differently. One “stilt walker” suit has up to 10 thousand LEDs. There, the product consists of several screens on which you can display absolutely any picture or video. And recently we broke our record and created a suit with 21 thousand LEDs. And they were all assembled by hand. The costume consists of several full-fledged screens, which we adapted to suit the outfit. You can also run any video or logo on these screens.

“UHD smart dress”, in which 21 thousand LEDs are assembled by hand.

What is it like to perform in such costumes with screens that cover your face?

— Of course, we make sure that you can see everything through the mask. There is a cut for the eyes. We are meticulous in our product development. Since Sergei and I are former artists ourselves, we understand how a person in a suit who will work on stage should feel. He must see everything perfectly and not get lost in space. It is also important for the artist that this costume can be washed. Our colleagues from China make suits that you wear once to a performance and then never wear again because you can’t wash them. And you understand that on stage the artist gives his all and you can squeeze everything out of him. Therefore, all our costumes - mirrored, LED - can be washed. We make sure that a person feels comfortable working in our products and that they can be worn for a long time.

From which countries do orders come?

— We work all over the world. The main flow of clients is from the USA (about 75%). And then customers are dispersed all over the world: Canada, European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, Iceland, South Africa, some CIS countries. Where there is show business, those countries work with us.

Tell us, which famous people have you made costumes for?

— The British rock bands “Take That” and “Muse” ordered costumes from us for their world tour. They also made mirror costumes for the American dance team “Daddy Yankee”. They also had a world tour, performed in costumes from ETEREshop at Madison Square Garden in New York and in a music video. We also made an LED jacket, which, as our little investigation showed, was ordered for the singer and actress Miley Cyrus. Her agent placed the order. But we have not yet found confirmation of this fact. In addition, Philadelphia hosts a very cool musical parade every year. And for three or four years in a row, several teams ordered costumes from us to participate in this parade.

Group "Muse". The dance team performs in glasses from ETEREshop.

How do you find clients?

— We are now launching advertising in Europe and the USA. But when we started working for America, many artists promoted us in their circles. In the US, artists are more willing to share information with colleagues about where they bought what. And then word of mouth helped us well: clients came one after another. There was a story about how both of our clients met at the same event and discussed that they bought a suit from us at ETEREshop. And they were so happy and then wrote to us that they met in the same dressing room.

You ship your products abroad. Any problems with customs?

- Yes, there were a lot of questions. There was a case where parcels were returned, and the client’s address could have been indicated incorrectly. And once the parcel was completely lost.

Jacket for Miley Cyrus.

But do you calculate such force majeure situations so that the goods are delivered on time?

- Yes, sure. We have a saying: the client wants everything yesterday. Because everyone usually orders almost at the last moment. Usually they ask to do everything in a week. And we do everything quickly. Depending on the urgency, we have different types of delivery: regular mail, expedited mail, as well as courier delivery - someone from the company simply takes the package and flies to where it needs to be delivered. We have already traveled all over Europe. Getting to EU countries is not a problem: every second person has a Schengen visa. Recently a visa to England was opened: the client had to provide technical support - help put the suit into operation.

There is one very interesting story about the delivery of the suit. It happened on last New Year's Eve. Our regular client from New Orleans (USA) ordered a suit in which she wanted to perform for the New Year. It was an urgent order. We did everything quickly. And it turned out that the delivery service would not be able to send our parcel to her on time due to the holidays. I remember we started to panic. December 29th on the calendar. We are in Belarus, and the client is in the USA. The whole office sat and thought about what to do. As a result, in the evening, through a chain of friends and acquaintances, they found a person with an American visa. The girl agreed to fly to New Orleans for New Year to deliver our package. The flight to America took 15 hours. And it so happened that she had relatives there near New Orleans. Therefore, she then went to them to celebrate the New Year. And so everything turned out well: the client received the order on time and worked in a new suit for the New Year. After this incident, we understand that we can deliver our parcel anywhere.

Explain how the artist controls the LED suit?

- There are different ways. For example, suit lighting modes can be switched using a button. Also, everything can be operated using real-time computer control. Either the artist presses a button, and then the lighting program recorded on the time tape follows the music.

Are you planning to expand and open branches in other countries?

- We are thinking about it. Our clients are scattered all over the world. Sometimes it is more convenient for them to communicate face to face rather than over the Internet. But even people are more interested not in personal communication, but in the opportunity to receive technical support. Therefore, now we often fly to different countries and show the client how to put the product into operation. But to say that there are any exact dates, a specific plan for when we will open any branch in any country - no. It will be seen later.

You have 50 people on staff who are engaged in work that is far from the most common in Brest, and even in Belarus. Do you have a problem with a lack of personnel, with the competence of people?

— We have really specific work. Even those seamstresses who now work with us first learned in practice what a mirror or LED suit is. For example, you need to understand that fabric with glued mirrors may shrink a little and this must be taken into account when sewing. But all people are teachable. However, from my point of view, I will say that we value people who are “transformers” in their own way - that is, those who can do different jobs. We have a development department that generates ideas and develops costume designs. And just a few people can do everything: from a sketch to a detailed drawing, 3D models, cut everything as it should, assemble it and make a costume. These are the people who can do a lot with their own hands and think creatively - they are important to us. But they are difficult to find. Most often we have people who perform their narrow task and that’s it.

Dance performance by Daddy Yankee in mirrored costumes from ETEREshop.

There is a general opinion that it is not easy to create a business in Belarus due to our legislation. What would you say on this issue?

- Yes, it’s not easy. Let's take for example the process of sending a suit to a customer. We have so much paperwork in our office! To send one parcel you need to complete up to 10 documents. And this takes about an hour, because all the documents must be prepared, then processed at customs, the entire folder filed, and then photocopies of the papers must be entered in a certified form - with the signature of the director and the company’s seal (electronic form is not accepted) to the tax office. And this is all just to prepare only one parcel for shipment. We send up to 10 parcels a day. And we spend a lot of time on all this paperwork.

Sergei Voitovich and Marina Goretskaya at an exhibition in Munich.

Your competitors are scattered all over the world. How do you manage to compete in such a massive environment?

— Due to the unique technology of creating costumes. It is also important to be a friend to every client, whom he can turn to at any time. And we have regular clients who know that no matter what idea they have in their heads, we will bring it to life for them. Even if something breaks two or three years after the client bought a suit from us, we can repair everything for him and add something new, because technologies change. Probably, due to the fact that we are always in touch, constant support and constantly creating something new, we manage to compete with the whole world.

Isolon wings

Izolon is used in construction as a substrate for laminate flooring. This is a relatively inexpensive translucent element. Wings made with it will be very light.

Materials for work

• Izolon.
• Wire.
• Insulating tape.
• PVA glue.
• Scissors.
• Various decorations.

Progress

1. Make a frame from wire and tighten it with isolon. Carefully seal the edges.
2. Attach an elastic band to the base.
3. Cut feathers of various sizes from the material so that future wings look natural. Using a glue gun, start gluing the feathers, starting from the bottom of the structure to the top. Large feathers should be attached at the bottom, small elements at the top of the structure.
4. Decorative elements can be added to the top of the structure.