Most fabric used in a film costume (including multiples)

The film costume set that used the most fabric was the ballgown worn by Lily James in Disney’s live-action remake of Cinderella (USA, 2015). Eight “multiples” of the dress were made for the production, each using 273 yards (250 m) of fabric, for a total of 2,184 yards.

In film and theatre productions, multiple versions of one costume can exist for an actor. When this is the case, there is one “hero” costume, which is the main version worn by the actor, and the “multiple” which can serve any number of purposes.

Sometimes, multiples are needed because the script requires the actor to get dirty, bloody or wet. Other times, in film in particular, the multiples are worn by a stunt double who needs them to perform any number of stunts from wearing a harness as she jumps off a building to falling from a moving train to getting riddled with special effects bullet holes known as “squibs.” And these stunts are often performed multiple times for the camera thus requiring multiple costumes!

The ballgown was designed by the Academy Award winning costume designer Sandy Powell (UK) and sewn by a team of 20 people. It comprises a tight-fitting bodice (worn over a corset) with eight layers of skirts over a steel crinoline. The translucent fabric of the outer skirts glitters with thousands of sewn-on Swarovski crystals. The eight multiples of the dress were required for the large amount of screen time that featured the dress, and included a subtly shortened version for when Cinderella had to run from the ball at midnight.

Dressmaker's fabric is produced as sheets of cloth (called "bolts") that are typically 54 inches (137 cm) wide and 100 yards (91.4 m) long. Fabric from these bolts is typically sold by the yard with each "yard" of fabric representing a rectangle of fabric with an area of 1.25 m2 (13.5 sq ft). The 2,184 yards (1,997 m) of fabric used in the eight ballgowns would have covered an about half the size of a football pitch.