Costuming for Nerds, Part 1
Mar. 18th, 2016 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilApropos of nothing other than wanting a topic to write about (in addition to my extremely niche songwriting hobby), I've decided to talk about my Halloween costumes. I love the holiday, I love coming up with a new costume every year, and I've especially enjoyed coordinating with my husband ever since we've been a couple. I'm far from an expert seamstress or costume-maker, so I thought it would be fun to explore how I've come up with each costume using only my amateur skills.
To start with, there was Halloween of 2000, when I decided to dress as a Royal Handmaiden from Episode I. This was influenced in large part by the fact that I had already made a cloak that summer, which I suppose was my first foray into cosplay. Here's the original, for reference.
Obviously mine was not going to include the awesome embossed patterns. I just found some affordable velveteen fabric and attempted my best facsimile of the cloak and hood pattern.
Not too bad considering I was making it up as I went. But as fun as it was to wear the cloak for no reason whatsoever, I figured a Halloween party would provide an actual venue for it. And for that, I needed to make the underdress. There was no chance of making it as elaborate as the original, which Rabé is wearing here.
No worries, right? The cloak would be covering most of it. I just needed a kind of blue dress and dark red hooded tabard. Ha. This turned out to be insanely challenging. I was at college, without my own sewing machine. I somehow managed to get to a fabric store, somehow managed to borrow a machine from my sister's friend, and somehow managed to slap something together at the last possible minute. It wasn't great. But it served its purpose well enough.
Oh, and then there was the guy I had a crush on, who just happened to be dressed as Darth Maul.
This picture was actually taken in 2001, when we were an official couple and decided that our costumes from the last year were awesome enough to just do them again. The clothes for his costume were simple enough, just dark pants and shirt and a cloak modified from some other costume. Then he put on a bald cap, taped horns to it, and applied the makeup. That was the tricky part, and he was very good at it. I'm endlessly proud of the fact that my husband owns far more makeup than I do.
He's so good at this costume, in fact, that he's used it for 4 separate Halloweens. I'll get to the most recent one in a later post, but the first time was 1999, before we met. Or was it? I distinctly remember being somewhere in downtown Provo with my sister and her boyfriend when I saw Darth Maul come out of a store and just about jumped out of my skin. Unless there were several Mauls roaming the city in October of 1999, it was probably Mark.
We really, really like Halloween costumes.
Next time - some of the most unsettling characters to ever appear in the cheesy movies of Mystery Science Theater 3000. :D
To start with, there was Halloween of 2000, when I decided to dress as a Royal Handmaiden from Episode I. This was influenced in large part by the fact that I had already made a cloak that summer, which I suppose was my first foray into cosplay. Here's the original, for reference.
Obviously mine was not going to include the awesome embossed patterns. I just found some affordable velveteen fabric and attempted my best facsimile of the cloak and hood pattern.
Not too bad considering I was making it up as I went. But as fun as it was to wear the cloak for no reason whatsoever, I figured a Halloween party would provide an actual venue for it. And for that, I needed to make the underdress. There was no chance of making it as elaborate as the original, which Rabé is wearing here.
No worries, right? The cloak would be covering most of it. I just needed a kind of blue dress and dark red hooded tabard. Ha. This turned out to be insanely challenging. I was at college, without my own sewing machine. I somehow managed to get to a fabric store, somehow managed to borrow a machine from my sister's friend, and somehow managed to slap something together at the last possible minute. It wasn't great. But it served its purpose well enough.
Oh, and then there was the guy I had a crush on, who just happened to be dressed as Darth Maul.
This picture was actually taken in 2001, when we were an official couple and decided that our costumes from the last year were awesome enough to just do them again. The clothes for his costume were simple enough, just dark pants and shirt and a cloak modified from some other costume. Then he put on a bald cap, taped horns to it, and applied the makeup. That was the tricky part, and he was very good at it. I'm endlessly proud of the fact that my husband owns far more makeup than I do.
He's so good at this costume, in fact, that he's used it for 4 separate Halloweens. I'll get to the most recent one in a later post, but the first time was 1999, before we met. Or was it? I distinctly remember being somewhere in downtown Provo with my sister and her boyfriend when I saw Darth Maul come out of a store and just about jumped out of my skin. Unless there were several Mauls roaming the city in October of 1999, it was probably Mark.
We really, really like Halloween costumes.
Next time - some of the most unsettling characters to ever appear in the cheesy movies of Mystery Science Theater 3000. :D
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Date: 2016-03-20 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 02:12 pm (UTC)