Once Upon a Time Costumes for Frozen Characters

The introduction of Frozen characters, sisters Elsa and Anna to ABC’s popular show Once Upon a Time has brought Disney Frozen towns to Storybrooke. ABC is helping viewers get a look at their interpretation of Elsa and Anna’s costumes by Emmy-nominated costume designer Eduardo Castro.

In this video from Disney Style you can watch the Arendelle sister Queen Elsa and Anna quickly twirl and model their OUAT-inspired costumes. These latest versions look to be close to the original cartoon outfits designed for Elsa and Anna from Disney’s Frozen.

McCall's M7000 Frozen Pattern — McCall’s M7000 Frozen Pattern

Making an Elsa or Anna Costume

Please be aware that both Elsa and Anna’s costumes (the Frozen or OUAT style) require many hours, a bit of skill and a lot of patience to complete. I learned this making a modified Elsa costume for my teenager to wear for our Disneyland Halloween.

This is especially true if you are interested in all of the detailing, like including Elsa’s many Swarovski crystals or Anna’s decorative (and ornate) embroidery embellishments fashioned in the tradition of norwegian (and other scandinavian) rosemaling (literally decorative painting).

One easy start place for making either Elsa’s or Anna’s costume is to use one of the existing Frozen patterns like McCall M7000 Misses Costume Pattern or the one by Simplicity S0733 Frozen Costume Pattern for Children. This is what we did for the Elsa costume that I made. I started with McCall’s M700 as a base and then added in embellishments. Make sure you have the right size for the costume that you want to make e.g. either adult or child.

Let’s take brief look at the costume breakdowns for Queen Elsa’s blue dress and Anna’s traveling costumes based on the video clip above. For more details see the full costume pages for Elsa and Anna. (coming soon)

Once Upon a Time Costume Breakdown for Elsa

Elsa’s OUAT costume looks quite a bit like the Frozen version, but is not an exact replica of the now iconic ice blue costume for Elsa. On the show her dress looks more like an icy light blue, for the promotional posters it is a beautiful turquoise.

The main components of Elsa’s OUAT costume are:

Turquoise-light blue long flowing dress
Turquoise-light blue glittery fitted (over) bodice/corset.
Crystal embellishements around the neckline.
Translucent long turquoise-light blue sleeves with pointed hem (attached to middle finger)
Translucent light blue cape-train attached to the top of the bodice with snowflakes and crystals.
Icy blue sparkly low-heel pump shoe
Long blond braid or braided blond wig

If you watch the tour of the Once Upon a Time costume studio with Emmy-nominated costume designer Eduardo Castro on the blog post, you’ll discover that Elsa’s costume is made with imported European silk that has Austrian crystals.

This version of her cape is made with sheer blue fabric that the design team printed snowflakes on using a technique called ‘sublimation printing.” To add more sparkle they used tiny imported Austrian Swarovski crystals.

Note: The price tag for the costume or OUAT’s costuming budget was not mentioned, but I can imagine it is pricy.

There also appears to have been some changes in her costume design from when she oozed out of the urn at the end of Season 3, which we’ll explore in the full costume breakdown page.

See our Pinterest boards for our collection of more DIY Disney Frozen Elsa Costume Ideas.

Elsa’s Promotional Poster from Once upon a Time on Facebook

Once Upon a Time Costume Breakdown for Anna

Anna wears a few other costumes before dawning her traveling costume when she goes off to Misthaven (a.k.a the Enchanted Forest). This traveling attire looks to be a close replica of her now iconic dress, cape and boots from Frozen.

The main components of her traveling costume are:

Raspberry wool cloak with attached capelet
Raspberry fur-edged hat
Light blue-gray blouse with high neck collar
Embroidered/embellished black over vest
Embroidered/embellished royal blue skirt
Blue-gray mittens (once she is traveling)
Long red braided hair or braided wig (This Anna doesn’t look to have the white streak in her hair.)
Black embroidered/embellished boots

In the video interview with Eduardo Castro that I included in the blog post, Anna’s skirt is done as a straight fabric and then gathered up into a dirndl. Her decorative embroidery is fashioned in the tradition of Norwegian (and other Scandinavian) rosemaling (literally decorative painting).

The embellishing can be done with embroidery (easier if you have a capable sewing machine), using paint and stencils or even felt cut out/appliques.

You can find links for many of the beautiful rosemaling patterns used on Anna’s costume that I found on the DIY Disney Frozen Anna Costume Ideas Pinterest board. The embroidery patterns are also included in the McCall M7000 Misses Costume Pattern (another reason to invest in the pattern).

At the beginning of the show Anna starts off wearing a more modest and plainly colored costume that looks a bit like one seen in Frozen, then changes into her mother’s wedding dress (for her upcoming marriage to Kristoff). We’ll explore (at least the plain everyday dress) in the full costume breakdown page.

Anna Promotional Poster from Once upon a Time on Facebook

Meet OUAT’s Elsa and Anna

To get an idea of what these costumes look like take a look at the costumes in action on Elsa (Georgina Haig) and Anna (Elizabeth Lail) in this video clip from “Meet Elsa and Anna from Once Upon a Time.”

For more on Elsa and Anna’s costumes on OUAT see the ABC article on Elsa & Anna Halloween Costume Ideas from Once Upon a Time.

Other Frozen Characters and Related Characters

With the Frozen story line being corporated into the Once Upon a Time show, several other characters from Frozen have also been introduced:

Kristoff
Sven – the reindeer (not as cute as the movie version)
Grandpa Pabbie (CGI) Rock Troll (definitely as cute as the movie version)
Hans
Assorted Hans brothers

Pinterest Boards for Once Upon a Time Costume Ideas

To share our ideas for OUAT costumes and collect ideas from others we’ve started a new board on Pinterest, the Once Upon a Time Costume Ideas – OUAT Costumes for all of the different character costumes from Fairytale town and from Storybrooke.

Follow The Costume Detective’s board Once Upon a Time Costume Ideas – OUAT Costumes on Pinterest.

In addition to the OUAT board you can find more ideas for just Elsa’s and Anna’s Disney costumes on our DIY Detective Pinterest account Pinterest boards for DIY Disney Frozen Elsa Costume Ideas and DIY Disney Frozen Anna Costume Ideas; there appears to be some overlapping with the OUAT Frozen character costumes and the Disney Frozen character costumes.

Disney Frozen Elsa and Anna Costume Ideas

I wrote up costume Ideas and costume breakdowns for the Disney versions of Elsa’s and Anna’s costumes last summer (2013), long before the sewing patterns were available.

The pages have been shared extensively on Pinterest and praised for providing many of the early details on making costumes for the Arendelle sisters.

These costume pages were originally on Squidoo, but can now be found on Hubpages.

Once Upon a Time Costume Ideas Pages

Fore more OUAT costume breakdowns ideas from the earlier Once Upon a Time Seasons you can find our original pages on HubPages.