This Halloween the odds were ever in my favor to recreate the venerable Effie Trinket! Here is my homage to Capitol Couture!
I bought all the fabric at a local fabric discount store. I bought about 4 yards of the pink brocade (which was way more than I needed), 1/2 a yard of pink lining and 1 yard of gold lining. Including notions, I walked out of the fabric store spending about $30. I made the outfit in 3 separate pieces. The pencil skirt was made from a free pattern I found on burdastyle.com. Here is the link
http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/ak-pencil-skirt.
The balloon peplum was created loosely following some of the guidance from youtube tutorials. Here's one of the ones that broke it down well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT2oMemC3jk 
The top was quite tricky as I didn't have a picture of Effie's back and I couldn't quite figure out how to make the off-the-shoulder sleeves. I found I vest pattern at Walmart for under $3. I cut the shoulders a bit to give it a more "halter" look and finagled the sleeves using rectangular pieces of the brocade, pressing pleats, and then handsewing on to the underside of the collar in the front and the armhole in the back.
I found a pair of shoes on
http://www.amiclubwear.com/. The trick was to find a pair of high heeled booties that had an open toe and a zipper in the front. Although I dearly love the gold $1500+ Alexander McQueen Faithful booties, sadly, they are out of my price range!
. I found these tootsies on sale for $9.99 and I found an online coupon for 30% off. So just over $7 and a short drive to the wherehouse (How fortuitous to live close to the shipping site!) they were MINE! My darling hubby was kind enough to spray paint them gold for me. I held them in place with gold tone brads (the kind that you can bind a stack of papers with). Can you believe it!?
I found the wig on Amazon. I think it was called a Lady Gaga Curly Blonde wig. I found mine for under $10. The hair flower was a Christmas ornament I made more substantial by hot gluing gold petals I sewed from the leftover lining fabric from the jacket/top. I hot glued a hair clip to the back of it.
I did my makeup and nails just following youtube videos. Youtube has tutorials on everything!
Many volunteer tributes that night! It was glorious!
