The Source

”Time to sing, [RahXephon]. Issue forth your song.”

Like many (if not most) people, I was introduced to RahXephon through the famous 2003 AMV Euphoria. When I eventually watched the show many years later in 2010, the mysterious girl in the yellow dress turned out to be the soul of the protagonist’ mecha, making her (technically) a robot girl. Intriguingly, in this show the robots typically sang at each other, rather than eating each others intestines as in RahXephon’s biggest pseudo-rival (Evangelion). I rewatched it with my spouse in 2024 and while I think it may have not have aged quite as well as some other shows, Hemisphere is still one of my favorite anime openings of all time.

The short science fiction story, Dandelion Girl, which RahXephon was very extremely loosely based off of can be found here.

The girl on the hill made Mark think of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Perhaps it was because of the way she was standing there in the afternoon sun, her dandelion-hued hair dancing in the wind; perhaps it was because of the way her old-fashioned white dress was swirling around her long and slender legs. In any event, he got the definite impression that she had somehow stepped out of the past and into the present; and that was odd, because as things turned out, it wasn't the past she had stepped out of, but the future. 

The Costume (2010)

The dress is made of seasonal yellow 60/40 polyester/cotton interlock from Joann’s. I ordered some cheap $2.60/yard knit from the internet and made two mockup dresses before making one more mockup in the fashion fabric and then making the actual rendition of the dress. If I’d known where to find something heavier, like a nice ponte di roma (or even just anything with a small amount of spandex in it), I probably would have made it out of that instead.

I was determined to make the dress with no seams but the two side seams, and getting the top half to be fitted while flaring out into a classic circle skirt took a lot of fine tuning of the transition angle near the waist. Patterning the armholes in a way that they wouldn’t gape was time consuming, and hemming a circle skirt made out of 2 way stretch knit is somewhat perilous as well, but in the end it all turned out really well.

Aside from my Sabrina corset, this was the first full garment I serged on my Brother 1034D. Patterning aside, most of the actual construction time on the dress was spent installing the lapped zipper—which is more or less completely obscured by the wig when worn.

I flared the scarf slightly and tapered the ends for a more elongated look. The ensemble comes apart in 3 pieces for easy travel and ironing. I made it out of 100% cotton from the country classic section at joann’s, which meant that even with a heavy starching, it wrinkled easily. At the time, I lived in Ohio, and it was the only fabric in the correct color available. If I had a do-over I’d maybe lightly interface the scarf or find some sort of poly-cotton something or other.

The sandals I bought from walmart, and the wig is a heat resistant Zephyr wig I purchased via Rakuten. I took care to find a wig with a “cool brown” rather than a “warm brown” color. (“Milk tea” colored wigs being annoyingly tricky to source. :/)

Photos

Reference