The T-Room
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Tabatha Bag's Carmen Dress

This is one of T-Bag's many disguises. It featured in Episode 7 of "Take off with T-Bag" entitled "The Phantom of the Opera". It only appeared on screen for 60 seconds! Click the image for some of Elspeth's thoughts on the dress.
 

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Description: The most striking observation about this dress is that it is extremely heavy due to the weight of the skirt. The main dress is green in colour, being made out of what appears to be polyester dupion. The upper part of the dress is lined with linen.

Around the shoulders are two large frills composed of four layers of fabric. The outermost layer is a lustrous red and black tartan fabric that could be silk. The two centre layers are plum coloured dress net. The innermost layer is plum/grey shot fabric (taffeta?).

The skirt is full length at the back, but knee length at the front. There are several fabric frills sewn onto the green base skirt. These frills give the dress its immense weight.

The frills aternate between a contrasting colour and the base green fabric. Beneath each contrasting coloured frill, there is a layer of plum dress net. Beneath every green frill, there is a layer of black dress net.

The colours are:

Red/black tartan silk(?)

Plum Fabric (as in shoulders)

Cerise satin

Plum Fabric

Tartan

Plum

Plum

Every fabric edge is overlocked in purple thread. This gives both a decorative edge and also prevents fraying of the material.

 

Trivia:

This dress was not designed by Raymond Childe, who was the costume designer for all of the series except for "Take Off with T-Bag". This costume was in fact designed by Jo Allman.

Although the costume looks extremely professional, there are a few gaffs in its making, for example, the seams at the back misalign by about one inch and the top part of the dress actually extends into the skirt by about six inches. This could be a design flaw, or on the other hand, it may act to strengthen the waist seam which has to support the weight of that monstrous skirt. The zip fastener at the back of the dress also is too long, and extends for about two inches past the end of the dress top as illustrated below: This, I'm sure is a design fault. It didn't really matter for this costume, however, because it was on screen for such a short period of time before T-Bag got shoved into a pile of stage props.

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