Jocelyn (Black Tournament Dress) - A Knight's Tale

Worn by: Dahlia Complete: July 2006 Status: Retired Photos: Fleur de Cosplay

About a week before Dahlia and some of her friends were scheduled to go to the Renaissance Faire, they all decided it would be fun to go as characters from A Knight's Tale. Dahlia needed to pick a costume that was fairly simple and wouldn't require a lot of "figuring out" time, so she decided on this dress since she's wanted to make it for ages and already had a pretty good understanding of how the outfit "worked." (For the record, her second choice was the Green 'Golden Years' Dress.)

The outfit was broken down into three components: a knee-length jacket with flowing sleeves, a sleeveless dress with a sheer bodice, and that stupid hat. The fabrics of choice were dupioni silk (yay 40% off coupons!) and crepon sheer, both in black. The dress was mostly hand-patterned, although in retrospect Dahlia wishes she had made the skirt flared instead of rectangular. The jacket was a pre-existing pattern that she modified to have more fullness and fall to the knee. To quickly mimic the trim on Jocelyn's jacket, Dahlia used a wide pre-embroidered flat trim. The sleeves are just large rectangles. The hat is hand-patterned, interfaced with buckram, and has two combs to keep it in place. Dahlia would like to set it on fire.

This costume was seemingly cursed--not only did it break her serger just as she started working on it, but she wound up wearing it on one of the hottest days of the summer (102 degrees, to be exact.) However, Dahlia was delighted to be referred to as a "foxy lady" on several occasions. :D Oh,
and God bless fashion tape.