I have recently fallen in love with the Disney show The Owl House, created by Dana Terrace. This show is amazing and adorable. And, because I love it, I have to replicate some of the costumes.

I decided to start with one of the most recognizable aspects, the school uniforms worn by our protagonist, Luz, and her fellow students at Hexside. I’ve also decided, perhaps foolishly, to size these costumes for cosplayers closer to Luz’s age, rather than for myself. Doing that means producing some entirely new slopers. Obviously, I can’t let things just be easy.

Uniform Pieces

Fortunately, the basic costume isn’t terribly complicated. Hexside students wear black, hooded shoulder capes over dark grey tunics with undershirt and legging colors decided by their majors.

First big decision to make, is that a separate waistband or a belt? I’m leaning towards belt, given the way it seems to cinch around the waist and the skirt of the tunic flairs out. Also, a belted tunic is just easier to make.

Youth Measurements

A capelet and tunic is pretty unisex, so we don’t need to worry about differentiating between boys’ and girls’ uniforms. Standard kids’ measurement tables also don’t seem to differentiate between the two sets of measurements, which is a relief.

Our old friend Mr. Regal has also provided a table of youth measurements, with a bit more detail and some helpful advice for proper sizing. The two tables seem pretty similar, though Regal’s waists are a little larger.

This is going to be helpful, because Regal actually provides both shoulder cape and hood diagrams in his text. Tunics, of course, were long since out of style by Regal’s day, but they are also extremely simple garments to draft and construct.

Starting Block

There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel here and, writing before they went out of style, Mr. Regal has done us the very great favor of providing several different cape options. Including a shoulder cape. He also provides us with instruction on drafting a hood, which can be added to either cape or coat.

One important thing to note here is that the instructions for both items require an existing front and back coat block. This proves to be actually convenient, because we can use the coat blocks as a start for the tunic. Regal also provides instructions on producing the bodice for a youth sack and overcoat, which conveniently flare out from the waist just like the tunics and should be something we can use as a start to those.

There isn’t much difference in the instructions for drafting the coats in diagrams 161 and 163 and those for the sack coat in diagrams 1, 2, and 3. Regal advises going up two sizes when drafting youth garments, and that certainly makes sense since kids grow. Especially in this case, with fairly loose fitting garments.

Replicating the given blocks (without the collar, obviously) produces a pair of basic pattern pieces that we can use for everything that follows. We wouldn’t have had to bother if we already had some upper body slopers in the correct size, but scaling adult patterns down for kids is tricky and I don’t already have properly sized slopers ready to go.

Hooded Capelet

I’ll admit to some temptation to merge the capelet with the tunic, similar to the design of an Inverness coat. However, on review, I don’t think that’s how the show’s uniforms are designed. The cape is pretty clearly closed on its own, over a separate piece; it is not attached to the lower layer and helping to keep both closed. Compare Amity’s uniform to the similar, but still notably different, Inverness styled school uniform below.

While that simplifies the design of the capelet a bit, it does mean a touch more work for the tunic portion. I’m sure this Inverness style cape will come in handy some day, though. In the meantime, a simple hooded shoulder cape is what’s called for.

We can follow Regal’s advice for both, using the youth-sized sack coat as a basis. It’s worth noting here, if we look back at Diagrams 103 and 104, that they correct for the fact that his coat diagrams bring the shoulder seam back from the shoulder center-line. Even though the coat’s shoulder seam is towards the back, the cape seam is centered. Just a note in the event that we want to use these instructions over a different set of upper body slopers whose shoulder seams already are centered.

Tunic

The closest thing to the actual school uniform tunic appearing in our world is a pinafore, which can resemble a tunic in many ways. In the US we call this a “jumper” but all the actual examples I can find come from outside the US where “pinafore” seems to be the preferred term.

It’s not quite right. Hexside’s aren’t pleated, they’re much shorter and clearly flare at the bottom. These longer garments are more like dresses or skirts, while the Hexside tunic is worn with leggings.

One thing suggested by both of these tunics is the yoke. A separate yoke has its benefits and drawbacks. Construction involves more work than a simple square tunic but adding more panels can increase the lifespan of the garment. Damaged panels that can no longer be patched can simply be unpicked and replaced and, as kids grow, new panels can be inserted to accommodate their changing size. A separate yoke can also be reinforced to better hold a loose garment.

Adding more panels also makes it easier to adjust patterns for different sizes and body shapes, since there are more seams available to play with sizing. In the above examples the yoke is being used to give the pleats somewhere to start. If we wanted to size up to adult costumes, this would also be a place to add bust darts.

Belt

Luz wears a pretty wide belt, unlike Willow, who wears hers much narrower. That right away gives us a choice in design, which isn’t helped by the fact that there are already so many ways to design belts, as we saw before with Sokka!

I do find the attached waist belts shown in the two pinafores interesting. It would certainly simplify things to simply make the belt a permanent feature of the tunic, rather than an accessory.

The combination of yoke and attached belt is not too dissimilar from a Norfolk jacket, a once-popular hunting jacket. As you may have guessed, Mr. Regal has some instructions on drafting one. However, his instructions are little more than “add a yoke to a coat pattern.” Which is what I was planning to do anyway.

Conclusion

Putting all that together gives, at least, the start of a workable pattern for a youth-sized costume.

The plan is for a simple tunic with separate front and back yokes and an attached belt. A separate hooded capelet completes the ensemble.

All the effort has also helped me to fix a final version of a youth sizing table for the shop, which also gave me the push needed to actually finish the adult size charts. I’ve been meaning to get to that for a while, anyway.

Next time, I hope to have a finished version of the actual uniform along with a downloadable set of patterns. In the meantime….

FREE PATTERN DRAFTS!

I really wanted this pattern to be in the shop before Halloween, but there’s no way I’ll have the pattern properly formatted or have instructions written in time for anyone to use it. So, instead, I’m making my draft pattern available for free until November 1st. At that time I hope to get actual print-ready versions on Etsy.

UPDATE: Due to a lack of time, I’m extending the giveaway until next year.

If you make the costume, please sent a picture and your thoughts about it!