Happy Birthday, Mister President! Marilyn Monroe Dress

This is my take on an easy-wearing replica of the iconic "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in 1962. I picked this project as a showcase for my new ultrasonic rhinestone machine, and it is something that I admired but did not make before because the amateur hotfix applicators are way too slow for applying thousands of stones. Now that it's complete, I can report that the dress is made of several layers of nude power mesh as the base with roughly 8,000 rhinestones. I used a maxi dress pattern I self drafted while living in Korea and tailored down from there. I won't be wearing a corset underneath, as this is really intended as an easy wearing, fun party dress for Halloween. The powermesh won't take a rhinestone on a single layer, but my test mesh did just fine with two layers.

Progress Notes:

I made the dress with three layers of power mesh in different tones. This helps add depth while making the dress opaque. Currently (Oct 9) I am working on fitting it and getting the arm/neck holes just right. Mine won't look quite like hers as I want it to be a pull-over, not zip, and I am not going through the trouble of corsetry for this one. I also selected and mixed the rhinestone colors from my stash - 50/50 split of the OLeeya "Pink Light" and "Bluish White" in 20,16,12, and 10. I have some "Pink Light" SS8 I can use as well.i