DIY Disney How to Make a Homemade Mulan Costume

DIY Disney: How to Make a Homemade Mulan Costume

A blog about how to make your own homemade version of the Princess Mulan dress.

DIY Disney: How to Make a Homemade Mulan Costume is the fifth installment of my DIY Disney Princess Costume series. For the previous posts, click on the links below:

DIY Disney: How to Make a Homemade Belle Costume

DIY Disney: How to Make a Homemade Tiana Costume

DIY Disney: How to Make a Homemade Cinderella Costume

DIY Disney: How to Make a Homemade Snow White Costume

For today’s installment, I am going to show you how to make your very own homemade version of Mulan’s iconic red and gold princess dress from the 1998 Walt Disney film, Mulan. (I apologize in advance for the quality of some of these photos. I was taking these pictures years ago when I was too cheap to buy a decent camera.)

View the full tutorial on how to make your own homemade version of the Princess Mulan dress.

This costume is easy enough for a beginner seamstress to sew, and it looks stunning! You’ll be so excited that you can have these beautiful costumes at a fraction of the cost of a store-bought costume.

Take some time to browse through our growing collection of free sewing patterns and tutorials. We have everything from costumes, to clothes, to bags and more!

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below or visit our Facebook group where we can help you with any problems you may be having.

A few months ago, I made a Rapunzel costume for my daughter. It was really fun to make and I enjoy doing any DIY Disney project, so I thought it would be fun to make her a Mulan costume to go with the Rapunzel outfit. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to go about making a Mulan costume that would be accurate, but not too complicated. So I hit the internet.

After doing some research, I figured out how to make a dress similar to the one that Mulan wears in the movie. The only problem is that it’s not an exact replica of the dress she wears; it’s more like a replica of the dress that Ariel wears in The Little Mermaid (which is kind of strange because the dress that Ariel wears is more like a replica of the dress Cinderella wears). If you search for “Disney Princess Costume” on Pinterest, you’ll see what I mean.

I ordered some fabric from Amazon and got started!

If you have a little girl who loves Mulan, then this DIY Disney costume is for you! For the dress I chose a very light pink chiffon material, because I wanted it to be soft and flowy. The fabric is light enough that it should be comfortable for your princess to wear.

For the sleeves, I used champagne colored satin material. It’s not quite as stiff as normal satin, but also not quite as soft as chiffon. The satin is really shiny in pictures and makes the perfect sleeve. You can use any color of satin you want, or even use organza or another sheer fabric if you want something lighter and more flowing.

If you are using a polyester fabric like I did, then no hemming is necessary! Polyester doesn’t fray so you can just cut the edge off of your fabric and it will be ready to go. Some people might disagree with me on this point, but there are more important things to do than hemming in my opinion!

Start with a dress that is close to the right color. You can find these at thrift stores, garage sales, and discount stores. The one I used was a new dress that I got on clearance for $15. In the movie, Mulan’s dress is more of an apricot/peach color than yellow.

Go ahead and sew the ribbon down if you want to, but you will probably have to remove it before painting so that your paint doesn’t bleed under the edges of the ribbon.

Cut out some circles from scrap fabric. These will be used to make the shapes on the front of the dress. I used interfacing (iron-on stiff white fabric) for my patterns and traced them onto the circles before pinning them on my dress.

Cut out some circles from fabric in a contrasting color that you like with your dress. Trace and pin these to your dress just as you did with the others.

Sew all of these circles onto your dress using a tight zigzag stitch or serging stitch if possible. Make sure you sew close enough to all edges so that your paint does not bleed under anywhere. If necessary, hand sew any bits that are too small for your sewing machine to get into.

Paint in

Mulan is an amazing character. She’s kind, brave, selfless and a good fighter. If you’re like me and love Mulan, follow these steps to make your own Mulan costume.

Steps

Method 1

1. Get a red top. The top should be long sleeved, with a modest V-neck and to about mid-thigh in length. A red turtleneck works great for this.

2. For the bottom of the outfit, you can either get a pair of plain black pants/leggings or make your own as I did (Mulan skirt tutorial coming soon!).

3. Sew on a black sash around your waist and you’re done! Simple and easy to make!

4. For the hair, braid two braids on either side of your head and clip them up with hair clips or black ribbons to keep them out of your face while you fight the Huns!

Method 2

1. You will need: a red long sleeved shirt or blouse, a tan skirt that reaches down to around knee length (it can stop at the knee if you want), some gold ribbon or fabric that is about 2-3 inches wide

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