Designing - Halloween

Something you may or may not know about me. I.LOVE.HALLOWEEN! It is my absolute all time favorite holiday of the year. More than my birthday or Christmas. Why?! Because I absolutely love the creativity it can bring out in some people. Myself included. Sure there are people who get drunk and wear store bought costumes (and no these two are not related it's just what I see). There are costume contests where I see people in the same costume, identical to the stitch and that absolutely drives me up the walls.
I'm sorry, but why do you think it is acceptable to use a store bought costume for a contest on creativity?!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I don't mind certain pieces, like a wig, or shoes because shoes are a pain to make sometimes, or a weapon or something like that. Or armor, I can understand purchasing that too. But if I wanted to go as a school girl I would either; hand make the entire costume or buy pieces like the skirt from a thrift store and work with what I have. That at least is some creativity because you have to work with pieces that were not originally together. I LOATHE store bought costumes. I will admit I've used them, but I try to not use them any more because I just don't like them. They are mass produced and generally look nothing like the character they wish to represent. Ok, that was a bit harsh I guess that is geared more towards anime costumes which I know are hard to duplicate and costumes like witches and ghosts are easier but I would rather something that's costume fit and something I am proud to say I MADE THIS!

That being said. I am designing my Halloween costume for this year - though if i don't get a job I doubt that I will be able to get it made this year as some of the pieces will not be cheap to make.

This past year I went as a dark fairy, it was a rushed project and it worked for what I needed it for. There is a lot wrong with this. I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the skirts look how I wanted them to, since come up with a better idea, but also figured out how I wanted to make these skirts look. The corset was bought in London and was in need of repairs, it did not have strong boning so it curved out at the stomach making that look terrible. The wings are clearly hand made, and the tights have some runs in them that I was not happy about. My make up is not very good but it worked for the campground which is what I needed this for. I did use it for Halloween because I didn't have time to fix it otherwise.

I have since revisited the Fairy idea and decided I want to give this a new design. I still like the corset, but the wings seemed to childish and the skirts were not fluffy like I wanted. When I designed the skirt for this new one though, I decided to make it more of a dress than a skirt so that I could use the corset and skirt together on their own, or in combination with another costume. The colors did not come out right and I am no good at shading right now so it does look a bit funny. I also scanned the wings wrong so they don't fit quiet right, but these do look decent.

I want this to be either a black velvet (crushed with sparkles may be the best) or a silk. I am leaning towards velvet because I know that is a strong fabric that will hold up to the strains of the corset. You can't see it very well but the busk is drawn in black, I think I would be ok with the steel busk just because it ties in the with the theme of this costume. I want to use spiral steel for the boning because this will give the support I need but will also have enough give to it that it can flex with my body when I sit.

The wings are actually purple on top and blue on bottom right now, you can not even see the third set of wings that are a black or silver, have not decided yet. So in reality the blue and black/silver wings will be on top framing the head (which yes, I did leave off on purpose) and the purple lower wings will come out from the hips. If I can find it these will be made from sheer stretchy material (like tights), maybe a bit of shimmer, and thick wire. If I can swing it, I will have a veining system that looks like a butterfly's so that there is some support for the wings. I have not figured a way to attach them just yet, but I have ideas starting. Because I am generally self conscious of my arms I want a shrug, this would only cover my shoulders and arms, and top of my back. This I think will be a cotton material but a very soft and flowing one.

The skirts. Yes skirts - plural. My idea is to have a simple peasant skirt, gathered as full as possible, in a black material. The kind is really up in the air right now, I might use tule so that it is really fluffy but that is also itchy so I may avoid that. It does however have to have a bit of flow to it, flow and grace go together right? Then to cover up the top of the skirt I want to have what looks like a wrap skirt but it's a actual one just layered and sewn together so I don't have to worry about tieing it together every time. This is the one fabric I am unsure of at the moment, but these layers will be silver, silver blue shade one (wings/shrug) blue shade 2 (wings/shrug), silver. The silvers may vary a little so there is some differentiation between layers, like one will be solid silver, one may have glitter on it, one may have beads sewn on it.


I think if I use tule for the under skirt I would shorten it, which I may do anyways for the shoes I have not drawn yet. I like the look of most shoes and having a long skirt would make it impossible for them to be seen. I know that one key feature I want with my shoes is similar to en pointe shoes. I love the look and grace that these shoes display. It is most likely attached to the fact that dances in these shoes have such grace as well. I can not dance so I would not be dancing in them. But I would want to replicate this look. I have only made one pair of shoes before, and they were a wooden flip-flop like shoe. I would also bring the wrap father up the leg I think, but then again I'm not sure I have never actually worn shoes like this before

The last piece that I have drawn is the necklace. I was looking through some jewelry online one day and found a simple design for a necklace and fell in love with it. I would rather make the entirety of this costume if I could and this one would not be to difficult to do, I could even make matching bracelet/anklet and earing no problem. Though that would be a lot of earrings since I have seven holes right now. Earrings are a bit more difficult for me because I don't like a lot of dangling jewelry and I don't have enough experience really to be confident in the aesthetic looks of everything. This will be a long work in process.

The more I think about this project I will not have it done for Halloween this year but it will be a costume I want to make for use whenever. Let me know what you think, thoughts appreciated more than you may realize.


~Luna Rae Anselm