Katy Perry California Gurls Candy Dress Costume.

Last Halloween, my niece wanted to dress up like Katy Perry in the California Gurls video. I went online to see if I could find her a costume. There are a lot of sad looking candy dresses online and people are trying to sell them. I saw a few good ones that people made themselves but most were just bad. Google "Katy Perry candy dress" and see for yourself. I went on youtube to try and get an idea of how to make the costume myself but there was nothing there to help me either. I decided to wing it and just make it myself.

First off, I do not know how to use a sewing machine. I bought as much as I could that was already made. I went to Hot Topic and bought a rainbow tutu. I knew I was not going to be able to make a skirt by myself so I bought one. I also bought a white corset top. I wanted a corset because the candy decorations would be large and I wanted something to shape my niece so it wouldn't make her look bulky.

 

The first image is the beginning stages of the costume. I should have taken a photo of the corset top undecorated but I was stupid and forgot. I had a lot of work to do in a little amount of time so I didn't take photos of each step but this gives you an idea of what I did. For the decorations, I went to Hobby Lobby. I bought some Styrofoam balls and a cylinder. I cut them in half so the flat side would lay against the corset. I used red and white Christmas ribbon to sew around one side of the bust to mimic the candy dress in the video. I bought puff paint in bright colors and used it to decorate all the areas of the corset that were bare. I went to Joanne's fabric and bought different colors of fabric and buttons shaped like cupcakes and candy. I hand sewed all the buttons on. Then I used fabric glue to glue the fabric to the Styrofoam. For the ice cream, I bunched up the fabric to make it look more like ice cream. I saw a lot of photos online of people who just covered the balls and they looked like perfect round balls on the costume but it didn't look like ice cream to me. Then I used straight pins with colored ends to poke into the fabric to mimic sprinkles. For the cone, I found a waffle texture fabric in pink. Then I took glitter glue from a Martha Stewart glitter set I bought and used it to draw the waffle marks on the cone. Then I covered the glue in glitter to show up better. 

 

On our trial dress run, I was pleased to see all the decorations held up well and it didn't cause the top to fall forward. Every decoration on her dress was hand sewed onto the dress. My niece is hard on clothing and I was worried if I used fabric glue to glue the items on, they might fall off.

 

I ended up adding more decorations to the top. I used a small Styrofoam ball and a plastic stem off of a rose to make a cherry. I coated the ball in glue and covered it with red glitter. Then I did the same with the stem using green glitter. I found heart shaped cookie buttons and sewed them to the straps of the corset. Here is a close up of the finished top:

 

 

 For the shoes we went to Burlington and got a pair of cheapo wedges for $15 because my niece didn't want to wear heels. I used modge podge (you can get it at any craft store, I got mine at Hobby Lobby) to coat the entire outside of the shoe. Then I used real candy sprinkles to coat the shoe. I held each shoe above a huge bowl to catch all the excess sprinkles and I just kept coating the shoes until they were entirely covered. I experienced a problem after I tried to apply more modge podge over the shoes to water seal them. The sprinkles started to smear and run. So I stopped applying modge podge over the sprinkles and I used cheap hair spray to lightly coat the sprinkles. Once dry then I applied the modge podge as a top coat. The hairspray created a barrier between the sprinkles and modge podge so it didn't bleed out anymore. It took a full day for the shoes to be completely dry. Here is the finished product. Cute!

 

For the finishing touches I ordered a purple wig off amazon. I got a great wig for $8 from Japan. I ordered the wig 6 weeks in advance in case of any problems. The wig took almost a month to get to me in California so I was glad I ordered early. I went to a Halloween party store and bought her some white thigh high stockings with a rainbow bow. They were around $10. For her makeup I just used some pink and purple eye shadow. I colored in her eye brows with purple eye shadow to match her hair. My niece didn't want anything too crazy for her makeup so I just tried to keep it young and cute. She is 19 so even though the look is a little risqué, she is of age and I think she turned out adorable.

 

 Finished Costume!

 

 Compared to the original. Not too bad!