Björk baby costume

The swan dress: One of the great cultural moments of the early 2000s. I made a baby-sized version of Björk’s swan dress for my 8 week old by simplifying a pattern for a grown up sized costume I found online here.

I had a newborn when I made this, so my main goal was to be efficient. The costume takes a about 4 hours to put together if sewing by hand, less than 2 hours if using a machine.

Supplies

  • skin-toned onesie

  • 5 sq yd white tulle

  • 1 yd white felt

  • 1 sq ft orange felt

  • 6 sq in black felt

  • white thread

Steps

  1. Make the tutu: I wanted the tutu extra poofy, so I cut strips of tulle and followed this technique. Measure your baby’s waist as you go and be sure to allow some extra space so it’s not too tight around their stomach. The length of tulle strips do not have to be exact; the skirt actually looks fuller when they’re all slightly different.

  2. Make swan head: I used the pattern on the bottom right to cut out two pieces of orange felt. Sew them together, stitching as close to the edge as possible and looping around the sides to seal the felt firmly together. don’t sew the side with the points. After this is done, turn the orange felt inside out and push it out to create a rounded beak. Cut a thin black strip of felt and place it under the end of the top of the beak, then fit the beak onto the swan head, pin in place, and sew together with tiny stitches.

  3. Swan neck and body: Made from several pieces of felt sewn together with machine. The shape just has to be a “U” that fits around the back of the neck and has an oval blob on the end for the head. On the right side of the onesie I cut layers of white felt to look like feathers, adding a few layers on top. Sew down the long feather bits so they don’t get in the baby’s face. After sewing the felt bits on, add in bunches of tulle to make the tutu blend into the swan neck more smoothly. This doesn’t have to be perfect.

  4. Attach swan pieces to onesie. I used a sewing machine to attach the parts around the back of the neck and upper chest, but did small bits of hand stitching to attach the head and the rest of the swan body.