The Mad Person-Who-Stitches: Final Fantasy X Lulu, Finally Done!

Review: I'm making this dress, adapted for an aerialist:

Bodice, trim, skirt and everything else are finally done and I put everything together. The front:
The back: The fur trim was still to baste on when I took these photos, and then I cut it off again to wash the costume after MomoCon 2016, so no photos with trim today.  I rather regret the fur trim, actually: I prefer the sharp line of the "corset" top without trim.

Overall, Lulu is the most detailed and challenging costume I've put together so far.  I'm very happy with how much of the views from Lulu's screenshots I was able to achieve.

Materials: black 4-way stretch lycra, nude 4-way stretch mesh, matte gray 4-way stretch knit, gray polyester satin with the wrong side out (the shiny side wasn't the right color, the wrong side was), rain-coat fabric both shiny side and inside out, white Tulip 3D fabric paint, metallic gray Tulip 3D fabric paint, invisible zipper, black ribbon (for a drawstring at the ankles), elastic

Time to make: Roughly 3 months.  Maybe half of that, if I'd been working on this all day, every day?  It did go together quickly once I had the detailed sections assembled and stitched and painted, but those took quite some time.

Things that worked well:

• Leotard as form-fitting bodice, details done in more stretch fabric on the bodice, nude mesh wherever the character shows skin.  I am so doing this with every character who shows lots of skin from now on.
• The black tab things sticking up from the back of the neck line are loops of my black stretch fabric for holding Lulu's braids.  Long wigs are heavy, and the jerk at the end of a drop means braids will easily pull a wig off your head, even with chin straps.  I snaked each braid through a loop and ran a safety pin through braid and loop.  They stayed put, and it worked for rehearsal (the wig pulled off in performance...ah, well).
• Not visible in the photos, but there is actually a full leotard underneath the pants.  The pants are sewed to the leotard bottom, leaving a margin of leotard fabric, and then leotard top and bottom are hand-tacked together most of the way around, and the leotard top front is stitched down to the pants at the edge.  The leotard back top is not stitched down to the pants, as the pants have to open up over the hips when putting the costume on or off (there's an invisible zipper in the back waist).  I did try snaps, but the stresses of bending and stretching around for the routine ripped them off, so I left the back open over the pants.  With the leotard bottom inside there are no worries about friction burns or underwear shots.
• The satin sleeves: I made the bells very small, and they don't fall back around the arms at all, while still giving the bell sleeve effect.

Things that I should correct or do better with next time:

• I should have made the gray satin portion of the sleeves come higher up the arm, to be at the same body height as the top of the leotard "corset".
• The pants should really be 3-4 inches longer.  Right now they are the right length when standing on the ground, but pull up a lot when doing splits in the silks.  I also need to cut future versions to taper more from the knee down: my Lulu could barely work around the poof for our fancy starting climb.
• I did the full mirrored pattern of Lulu's train on each pant leg, which scaled down the height more than I like.  On a redo, do only one half of the pattern on each pant leg.  The fabric paint for the edging did dry flexible.  The flip side is that it remains slightly tacky even when fully dry.  I may try a different brand of 3D paint next time, or switch to SoSoft brand flat fabric paint.
• Joining "skirt" and "bodice" portions of a costume.  Torso seams get a lot of stress during performance, and while I can repair small sections of broken stitches after each use, I worry for the life of the costume.  Repairing fabric that's shredded from having stitches pull out too many times is out of my league.  And in general, the join between top and bottom is my structural and engineering weak point, and I'd like to feel as confident about it as I do about the top and bottom separately, in general as well as for this particular costume.  And the costume almost has to join, both to maintain the look and to avoid all the hazards of having pieces that can pull apart or pull off while you are swinging around a trapeze or wrapping yourself up in aerial fabrics.  Having longer pants will help, I think.  Beyond that, I'm still thinking.  Gentle reader, if you are a person-who-stitches-for-aerialists and have advice for dealing with this issue, please let me know.