Item: Oswin Oswald’s Custom-Made Red Dress
Appearance: Asylum of the Daleks
Combined with: River Island High-Top Hidden Heel Sneakers in red, American Apparel Striped Calf-High Socks, Fox Run Stainless Steel Magic Whisk, Storm Junior 1991 Watch, Hi Tek Designs London Alexander Modified Belt
Oswin’s red dress was likely a custom job by the Doctor Who costume department because even after so many years, no ID has been found. I’ve seen a lot of cosplayers with amazing store-bought dresses that go very well with the rest of the cosplay, so if you can find a similar dress for a good price, I would suggest just going for it because any red dress will do just fine for this one as the outfit as a whole is very recognisable.
Making Oswin Oswald’s Red Dress
I personally love sewing, so I decided to sew my own Oswin dress. I found the nearly perfect pattern (Burda 6575) that has an asymmetric cleavage area and fitting length. I merely adjusted the length of the sleeves and added a little fold in the cleavage area. Because my dress form has bigger boobs than I do, the dress didn’t fit it and I had to pin it down to take photos XD
Shortly after buying the pattern, I went on to search for the right fabric (for German cosplayers who love to sew, I recommend stoffe.de or butinette.de, but you can also find a lot of great fabrics on Amazon and eBay). I found a nice cotton fabric that wouldn’t cost me an arm. It’s easy to handle, not too fragile, doesn’t wrinkle too much, and doesn’t get lint everywhere. I’m afraid I didn’t take any photos of the sewing process for this one because I made it within four hours (that’s how simple the pattern is and it’s also suitable for beginners). In hindsight, the material wasn’t the best choice and you should go for something stretchier than plain cotton if you want to create your own Oswin Oswald dress from Asylum of the Daleks.
The dress I ended up with isn’t entirely screen-accurate because of the seams, but I quite like how the cleavage turned out. Sadly, I haven’t gotten around to making the belt so far.
Please bear in mind that my sewing skills were limited at this point as I was only starting out and I had a very basic sewing machine back then. The dress totally pales in comparison to all the amazing things I’ve seen people do with their Oswin Oswald Cosplay.
