American McGee: Denial Dress Cosplay

As soon as I saw the Denial Dress on American McGee’s Patreon, I knew I had to make it. I wore this to PAX last year.
This is also the first time I have created a design based on concept art.

I used fabric from Spotlight to create the dress, ribbons, blanket edging, craft foam and I modified and weathered halloween plastic skulls to create the back ribbon skull details. The best part though….was destroying the dress!

The key feature of the dress that drew me to wanting to cosplay this version of Alice was the denial aspects of the dress, pretty at the front….destroyed at the back. To weather and destroy the back of the dress I used a combination of red sharpie writing, black paint and FIRE! In the concept art the back of her dress has been burnt….for authenticity I did actually burn the fabric (and maybe the butt of my dressmaker mannequin in the process too…oops!)

This was the first time I used real flames on a cosplay to weather it….and probably my last.