*tHat GiLLiAn dReSs* from "Practical Magic"

How many times have you watch a show or seen a film and thought: that outfit? I have to have it or I'll just DIEEEE. Ok ok; maybe you're a little less dramatic than I am but, you know what I mean. As someone who as slowly but surely practiced and gathered just enough skills to recreate almost any look I find myself lusting after in my fave films, perhaps I get the urge to DIY more than the average person? Regardless, what is funny to me is how I never run out of dresses, garms and charms that spark my imagination on my "Must Recreate" list. The latest on the docket has been a green slip dress worn by Nicole Kidman in the film Practical Magic. If you don't know which dress I'm talking about, I need to know how the heck you found my blog ;P but also...allow me to elaborate:

Gillian Owens, played by Nicole Kidman

This dress appears in the film for approximately 40 seconds, by my own count. I excluded the time we know she was wearing the dress but the shots were so close up you couldn't see it at all, and the rest of the footage has Gillian mostly seated or only seen from the chest up. So really...NOT a lot of screen time for this full dress! I would say 10 seconds maximum, and that might be a stretch. So why on earth is a little number like this with such a small amount of even being fully in view becoming such an iconic piece of 90s fashion history? I can't pretend to know exactly what made it so captivating, in that "omg-i-have-to-own-this" way, but maybe it really is MAGIC.

All of the outfits the Owens sisters wear in this movie (and let's face it, the Aunts are rocking some major threads in here too) are absolutely iconic. There is an ease to their style that seems to have that day-to-evening wear appeal we just don't see in today's mainstream. Fancy fitted cardigans with maxi skirts, long sweaters with shorter slip dresses, and a color palette any cottage core witch can vibe with- I can see why the whole movie is major wardrobe inspo to a fashion forward crowd. But this dress in particular really stands out, and of course once I started to think about how to make my own version, it became a bit clearer as to how this little number became the crown jewel of all the Owens looks.

Well, an attempt was made.

This is a bit of ironic timing but I tried my hand at this dress for the first time last year. Let me first go ahead and admit that the pursuit was a total DISASTER and I won't be sharing too many photos, except this one as a warning of caution: I know you may want to salvage everything, but using a thrift flip type of paint on velvet burnout only almost works...so don't make my mistake. I tried to turn a piece of blue fabric into green by having my sister bleach out the dye but it only took the color out of the mesh material, and so we figured we may as well try to scrub in a thin green paint into the velvet parts and yeah. It didn't look horrible but the texture is ewwwww.

Oh heck no we are not paying $119 for a gamble

And so, with that first thrift flip flop, we continued to collect any second-and GREEN burn out velvet we could find for the next year and a half. We now have a boatload of beautiful fabric to make dresses from, but it wasn't until about a month ago that I stumbled upon what I was hoping would make the ideal skirt for my Gillian Dress. And it just happened to be a long-sleeved turtleneck. They still sell these on the Soft Surroundings website but you know mama does NOT pay retail, so once I found the shirt itself, it was actually pretty easy to find a few for sale on ebay and thredup.

My issue was that I didn't know what this thing looked like in person, or what size would provide me with enough material to get a good skirt out of it. But it just seemed to be the correct color and burnout design, which in and of itself has been WILD work to conclude- I mean, who knew there would be so many shades of green velvet and that this dress itself would look wildly different in the production photographs versus how it actually looks in the movie! No wonder I've ended up with that boatload of velvets. They will all be put to use- fear not.

Here we have 5 runners-up!

I mentioned before that it was a bit ironic that I start work on my dress when I did, but of course I went on a textile tangent and failed to explain why- so let's get into that now. See, when I go to recreate a garment or accessory I've seen in film or TV, the research on the item begins immediately. My first question was: did the costume designer make this dress, or was it something purchased? This helps with my next question of "is this garment one-of-a-kind?" For this dress in particular, that is where my research got murky almost from the jump. When I look at the dress on screen, to be honest it came across as something custom made and hand-finished. Not a problem, it just looked as though it was not necessarily professionally sewn. Or the velvets were so hard to deal with that there was no other option than to carefully attach the top to the bottom by hand. I don't know any other way to describe it other than "home made" (NO OFFENSE intended, I swear). I don't think I was wrong in that line of thinking because as it happens, the original designer of the dress came forward via instagram WHILE I was researching and; after identifying herself and her design house as Monah Li, confessed that she had only just watched Practical Magic for the first time and had no idea that her dress had gone viral. I just couldn't imagine the odds of me working on this project while the original designer was actively discovering that this green piece of art put a spell on every fashion fiend like me who's seen it.

As I continued to look out for second-hand velvet options and scooped them up as soon as I could, knowing that if this dress did get more popular, the price points of these scraps were going to go through the roof; I learned more about the construction of the dress. Monah Li's dresses were called "The X-Dress" for a signature X of velvet ribbon she added to different colorways. These dresses are so cool because they use a mix of gorgeous textiles, and she dyes the finished dresses, which anyone who has dyed a finished garment with different materials knows that you often get a surprise as to how each fiber will pick up the pigment. I assume that the green one Nicole wore was an X dress, and Monah has informed us via social media that the costume designer for the movie (Judianna Makovsky) must have purchased it at Fred Segal in LA where it was available, and put a different skirt on the bottom to make it a mini especially fit for Nicole.

I feel like Cher Horowits might have rocked a whimsy dress or two when we weren't looking.

Personally, I think this must have been done as an accommodation seeing as Nicole Kidman is 5'11 and unless they had originally commissioned Monah Li to design the dress as a custom, there may have been some fit issues with the first version. So putting that to rest, this particular garment is a frankendress if you will - the empire top is definitely Monah Li, the bottom is unknown. I'll tell you what though: after watching THE DRESS scene for the gazillionth time, I realized that the back of the bodice is an entirely different textile than the front or the skirt portion! This seems to have gone unnoticed, but my eagle eye saw what it saw, and so I made sure my rendition of this dress also has a totally different material on the back.

To think I almost made this dress without really taking a good hard look at the other side! I suspect the material shown here is a part of the original Monah Li design but we'll have to wait and see if that's true. I did ask and she has a very sweet friend running her IG account while she takes on the custom orders she is now receiving for the Practical Magic dress, so I told them absolutely NO rush! In the meantime I am still piecing my tribute dress together like a puzzle and am making progress.

 It's always truly wild to reverse engineer a one-of-a-kind garment and see it start to take shape. One minute I have a pile of materials and a few crash outs later, I'm looking back at that pile and it's really starting to resemble the magical piece of my dreams. Much like The Pattie Boyd Gladiator Sandals, just knowing that the actual thing I'm creating isn't something that was ever mass produced and yet it now exists in my world is the kind of feeling that is hard to really describe without sounding materialistic. For me, it's not just about having something that you know people want. It's about taking pride in being self-taught and having the skills to make my fashion dreams come true. You had better believe that although the hooks and eyes haven't even been affixed to this babydoll, people are already in my DMs asking me where they can purchase this dress! HA! Again, the same thing happened with the Pattie Gladdies and while I appreciate the enthusiasm, I always hope that people can take a minute to enjoy my personal accomplishment before pressing me to make something for their consumption. At the end of the day I still am battling every day with the disabiling symptoms of my dysautonomia that includes hEDS, POTS and MCAS so it's quite a bit harder for me to reach deadlines (I'd be remiss if I didn't add severe executive dysfunction thanks to my brand of autism/ADHD to why that is) let alone run a smooth business operation. So I'll tell ya what...

Remember I said I have a ton of velvets and burnouts that I thrifted? They're all very nice but none of them were perfect, so I am willing to put together as many dresses as I can squeeze out of the extras that I have. I will not be taking custom orders, I will not be giving preferential treatment, and each one will be a tribute to the Practical Magic dress without being an exact copy. Remember, this dress was something of an unintentional collaboration between a fashion designer and a costume designer and we must give all the credit to Monah Li and certainly Judianna Makovsky for actually creating this one-of-a-kind garment and calling my recreation what it is: a tribute, not a copy, to their creative vision. Making my own version of this dress has taught me so much, as every project does, and in this case I loved learning that what I've been doing all these years already- deconstructing thrifted garments and materials and upcycling them into things that I really want and love is exactly how this dress came to be in the first place! The one I am finishing for Halloweentime is indeed as accurate to the film as I can possibly get it, and no I will NOT be selling that one because it is, after all, a gift to myself. But I understand these dresses are in such high demand that to not at least attempt to put the tops and bottoms I already thrifted together and offer them to the public would be almost criminal so with a little good fortune I will be well enough to have a few of these for sale in time for the holidays. But don't hold me to any deadlines, people! I'm disabled as hell and do things on my own time, thank you very much ;)

Seeing this little army of dresses over the summer re-invigorated me to finish what I started last year, despite the many setbacks and some serious lapses in judgement when she got under the sewing machine (brain fog will do that to ya, kids) and I am so grateful that Monah Li is back at it and getting the props she deserves. Honestly having a better look at her body of work is showing me how absolutely influential she was in 90s fashion. The details of the mix media in her dresses and that iconic beading/woven ribbon detail on the tops absolutely trickled down into mainstream fashion from what I can see. As it turns out, her designs were worn by some very famous folks back then with little awareness of the fact on her part...but I'll let her tell her own story when the time comes. Follow her instagram for the details and if you have the funds, it would be such an amazing opportunity to own one of her original designs. She is clearly a wizard with the sewing machine and skilled with dye baths and such. Me? I'm still learning. I took a LONNNNG break from my machine and was stitching absolutely everything by hand for the last many years. It took so long for me to get brave enough to take the machine on again that by the time I did, she was pretty well broken. I acquired a fancy embroidery machine very early in my fashion journey but I think that was part of the problem. It was too complicated to learn on, so I did myself a favor and leveled down to a Brother beginner machine and boy am I glad I did. This is the first project I've tackled on the sewing machine in years. Maybe one day I'll be as good as Monah or Judianna but until then, you know where I live (here! dollierocker.com! ;P)

Consider this Part 1. Part 2 of this blog will be the big reveal of the finished dress, and perhaps some details of how I will handle my pile of pretty fabric for you lovely people reading. Now I'm off to watch Practical Magic oneee more time before Halloween is in full swing. On VHS of course, as goddess intended!

Oh, and check out my new friend Jenna's videos including this short n' sweet one that talks about our favorite frock right here! She is into so much of the same stuff we are here at Dollierocker and I'm stoked to have connected with her. Bravo, Miss Jenna!

Also...after a year of relentless research on the dress and how it was made I have happily stumbled upon 3 goddesses that have made their own versions of the dress themselves. Check out Abi Sue, FashionedByLies, and PracticalMagickWitch! While I didn't use any of their methods for my own I feel obligated to stress that I absolutely didn't beat anyone to the punch with this one, LOL. And if you know of someone else that has made a DIY of The Gillian Dress from Practical Magic, drop me a line so I can include them here! Great work, witches. See you all soon <3