Marion's Costume Escapades

A cosplay of the 5th Doctor from classic-era Doctor Who. A very early cosplay attempt of mine, this costume under went a few transformations over the years until it was converted to my Rule 63!Fifth Doctor Costume.

The coat was a very lucky find at a thrift store, which I trimmed with orange-red twill tape to create the contrast bands. The coat is much lighter weight than Peter Davidson's original, which makes it better for cons where it's often very warm, but also made all the layers needed in this costume very difficult. While the original 5th Doctor wore a full-sleeves cricket sweater under his costume, I used a sweater vest to reduce the bulk. The stripes around the neckline were added by hand-painting a strip of twill tape and sewing it into the neckline of a cricket sweater. The straw hat was added later, and shaped by myself from a straw blank, with a red ribbon added. The shirt was a plain dress shirt, with fabric paint added to create the contrast red inside the collar and for the question marks. The pants were made by myself.

Never a terribly flattering costume on myself (I wasn't good enough at making pants yet to stop them from looking a little pajama-bottom-esque, and layer sweaters over button downs is not the best option for someone as busty as myself), but it was fun and recognizable, and got me through many a con.

This costume, along with the other Doctors, won best in Artisan Division at the Polaris 22 masquerade.

A group costume with a few friends of mine for Polaris 26. We wanted to do gender-swapped classic-era Doctors from Doctor who. Each of us had made the standard version of the classic costumes for earlier cons, so it was time to mix them up.

My 5th Doctor costume had never been my most flattering or comfortable costume. I am not exactly similar to Peter Davidson's svelte 6-foot build, so the very layered costume was always very lumpy and overly hot on me. For this costume I took several elements of the original costume and altered them to be more feminine (and flattering on myself).

I ditched the cricket sweater entirely. The shirt is the original from my first costume, but taken in slightly and altered to have short sleeves (SO much more comfortable under that coat). The coat, hat, and shoes are all the same from the original costume, and a made a brand new skirt of a great fabric I found on Ebay, much closer to the 5th Doctor's original striped trousers than the candy-cane stripe of my original costume. I finished it with a white belt, painted with small question marks to mimic the suspenders Five wore under his sweater.

A very fun and comfy costume to wear during the day at the con, and far more flattering on me than my original 5th Doctor costume.

My first ever con costume. I believe I'm 15 or 16 here? Quick and easy, from the Simplicity pattern. This one has got me through many a Halloween, and won me my first ever Masquerade prize, at Ad Astra Masquerade!

 A formal evening gown inspired by the design of Marvel's Iron Man.

Don't ask me where this idea came from, because it simply hit me out of the blue. Like the rest of the world, I became completely obsessed with The Avengers after it came out, and Iron Man had always been my favourite. People have been doing genderswapped Superheros since the dawn of time, but I got the idea of not just having them as ladies - but in glam evening dresses.

To date, this is one of my favourite costumes, and the MOST fun to wear to cons. I wore it to Polaris 26 and Toronto FanExpo 2012.

concept artwork

The dress is entirely drafted by myself. It's made from polyester satin, almost all of which is interfaced to make it slightly less of a pain to work with. The lower skirt is split at the front and has two layers of orange and yellow tulle (layered to replicate the gold colour of the satin). I managed to luck out and find a gold zipper with red tape for the centre back.

The gloves are purchased, but I added the gold band across the top.

This was my first go at adding anything electronic to a costume. I had a friend in the States mail me one of the licensed toy arc reactors, but it had more than a few problems.

a) the casing was red, not silver
b) The lights inside were yellow, not blue or white
c) it would only light up for a few seconds at a time, not stay lit up

I re-painted the casing and tried my best to replace the LED lights inside, but an electrician I am not. Eventually I just used the outer casing, put three coiled blue glow sticks inside, and stuck a small LED flashlight in my cleavage. The arc reactor attached to the front of my dress with snaps glue-gunned onto the casing and sewn to the front of the bodice.  The lights in my gloves are good old-fashioned press-lights.

I'm wearing pretty high platform heels under this dress, and I have had more than a few cases of someone completely not recognizing me when I change out again. It's amazing the transformation a wig, a pair of heels, and some spanx can do!






A few more silly pics from FanExpo

In Fall 2012, I was lucky enough to be selected from other students at my school to participate in the Creativ Festival's Creativ Catwalk Challenge. Teams of three from various fashion colleges in Southern Ontario competed over one weekend to design a gown, working with a budget and limited to the supplies they could buy at on the show floor. The theme for the garments was Silver Anniversary Celebration.

After a very busy and hard-working weekend, the George Brown team won first place!

Our gown was draped and drafted by ourselves, using black synthetic taffeta and silver slinky knit. The train uses 5 metres of fabric! It was embellished using foiling, hand beading, and heat-bonded Swarovski crystals. The hat was also created using matching self of the dress and all the feathers and beads we could find!


Behind the scenes:

A final collection of garments designed, drafted, and sewn by myself during my two-year Fashion Deisgn and Techniques diploma at George Brown College.

Photography by the fabulous Krissy Myers. Anyone looking for photography in the Toronto area, I cannot recommend her enough.