In my Senior Year of High School, for my entry into the Florida Thespians District Competition, I created Belle’s yellow ball gown from Beauty and the Beast. This dress occupied my thoughts since the year prior when I created Belle’s blue dress and decided it needed a sister. The design I went with featured pleats similar to Blue dress, but flipped (compared to the blue dress) by being on the skirt and having a clean torso, representing the continuity of the character’s core but also the shift and flip in opinion that the scene displays between her and Beast. The skirt is made up of 6 panels of yellow cotton with 6 panels of lace, pleated and gathered on the seams to create depth and glam, along with a white crochet-esk trim to convey elegance. The skirt is supported by a central waistband, which allows for an easy one-step changing process in and out of the skirt. The corset is a floating lining corset with boning channels for structure. The back features a false back and snaps system which allows the look of a historical corset but in reality can be quickly changed in and out of backstage without sacrificing the flexible sizing capabilities of a lace up back. The total time to get the dress on or off is no more than 40 seconds. The dress features cost effective materials including bedsheets, a curtain, a table runner and materials I already had such as grommets, twill tape and elastic in order to stay under the $100 spending limit. In total, I spent $77.

At the District level, this dress was awarded a Superior rating (highest rating level), Top Honors (for receiving a perfect score), Critics Choice (picked by judges as the strongest entry for the category), and was selected out of every technical event across the whole festival (including non-costume constructions) to represent our district for Technical events at states.

This dress was entered again at the state level and received 5 superior ratings across 2 events.