We have a saying at the Tutu Factory UK when Luby (the designer) creates something that everybody wants and we're working silly hours to get the 100s of orders out. "We've created a monster." And with the Roar costume we certainly did! If you've seen any of our other blogs you'll see we love Katy Perry. But we didn't actually purposely set out to make her Roar costume. A customer requested a custom order to create the roar tutu skirt and we later decided to make one with the flowers and then see if we could make a top to go with it. It was placed on ETSY to see how it would do and here we are. Several hundred sets later and still going...
Here is a little peek into how our sets are made and the work that goes into them. It's hard to understand how things are made if you don't know how to sew. It's easy to think we have Disney sidekicks and magic to create them! We don't have a team of people cutting, another sewing, adding detail etc. It's all done by hand, by 1 of 2 people. So yes, it won't be out within 24 hours but it's hand made especially for you so we like to think it's worth the wait.
We have 3 different greens to create Katy's jungle leaf tutu look. Each layer has 3 panels and we also have 2 layers of flashes in there too that have to be individually cut out at various lengths depending on the length chosen by the customer.
So, if a customer requests a 12 inch long tutu it would be 3 panels of 12 inches for the bottom layer, then one 11 inch piece for the 'flashes' on that row and then 3 panels of 9 inches for the next layer and so on.
So, that's the tutu done. Its great when customers just order the tutu as we love getting orders out really quickly! But, most people love the whole set and we cannot deny you lot!
So now we begin cutting out the tops. Below is the children’s long halter neck top for our Girls Katy Perry Roar outfit. We also have an adult crop top. This fabric is £25 a metre so it does bump the price of the total set but it was the best fabric out of the many, many (many!) different stretchy leopard fabrics that we tried. We don’t have any fancy shmansy machines to cut out the tops, it is all done by hand and scissors.
Mother Tutu does use a roller cutter which is better for smoother lines but im banned from using it as I cut myself just looking at it! (Unsure of the correct terminology here but im sure any craft people will understand what im getting at) Mother Tutu also created the patterns for all the tops from scratch. (She did a pattern making course a while ago and now its any excuse to make a pattern!)
As most of the edges are left unsewn we have to make sure that the lines are super straight so they give a great finish! It's slow going but we'd rather they look as nice as possible. Then they just need to be sewn together and that's that one done! Just that one...
Each individual top takes around ten minutes to draw and cut out. It only takes a few minutes to sew as its quite a simple top.
So that's all the sets completed and ready to be packed and shipped out worldwide. We’ve received so many great photos from customers making the outfits look amazing.
Hopefully, you've had an interesting sight into the behind the scenes of the Tutu Factory and how much effort really goes into one of our tutu sets!
