Bird of Paradise Bustle Gown

For the bustle undergarment, I combined patterns from several books (see below). The corset I used for this dress was made by me a number of years ago during my Master's program. The skirt was made with lots (and lots!) of draping experimentation rather than a pattern. Thankfully, a while back I'd made a custom dress form of my corseted torso, which was a huge help in draping the bodice. The Bird of Paradise petals that decorate the bodice were a big challenge! The design/draping process for them went through several iterations as I played with the dimensions and tried to figure out how to neatly turn the edges of something so narrow and pointy, and I very much wanted get them right since they were the most evocative feature of the flower theme of the dress. The petals are made of an orange-gold silk dupioni and a dark purple cotton batik which I appliqued on with stab-stitching, with the center petal hiding the front hook-and-eye closure. The dress is made of a lightweight medium-green brocade for the bodice and skirt side panels, and a dark green quilting cotton for the drapery that I loved for the striped pattern that evoked large tropical leaves. The Bird of Paradise-patterned satin for the skirt front was custom-printed by Spoonflower. I also assembled the floral trim used on the skirt by twisting together two strands of leaf-shaped trim, then hot-gluing on the orange and purple rosettes.