Original Inspiration

There were two different things that inspired this costume. The first was, of course, the original character from the book, which you can see in the first picture to the right. The second is the stuffed animal version of the main character. That was actually what originally got me excited about this costume; I was cleaning out a shelf in my home and found it there, and it was such a perfect example of exactly the sort of thing I wanted to work on. The challenge then, of course, was implementing that.

Patterns

I used two patterns in this costume. The pants were Simplicity 8457, which I chose because I knew the pleats at the waist would help hide the battery packs for the lights, and the jacket is a heavily modified version of Simplicity S9227.

Fabric and Lights

Finding the fabric was the first challenge for this project. I knew I wanted it to be a very dark blue velvet, like the plush version uses, but finding it in the right color and without any stretch was really tricky. Eventually, I did find this gorgeous fabric on Etsy. It does have stretch in one direction, but it’s a nice, lightweight velvet that worked really well for this project, and I was able to redirect the stretch so that it didn’t pose a problem.

The second, and much larger problem was the lights. I toyed around with the idea of using individual LEDs, and somehow programing them with an Arduino, but I quickly realized that there were many problems with that idea. Powering them, keeping them connected to one another… The list goes on. So I threw out that idea, and instead went for simple battery powered, remote controlled LEDs, which I found here on Amazon. I used five of them; one in the hat, two in the jacket, and two in the pants.

Sewing them in was incredibly tricky. First, it required careful measurement to see where each light could go to make sure they were evenly spread out. Then, a hole is poked in the fabric and sealed with Fray Check to keep it from pulling apart. Once that’s dry, the LED is poked through, and sewn in place to keep it secure. It all sounds pretty simple, until it has to be done 250 times.

To further keep the lights in place and protect them, as well as to make the costume more comfortable, I fully lined both the jacket and the pants in a simple cotton lining that I got at a local fabric store.

The Hat

The hat was actually the first piece of this that I finished, and it was also incredibly tricky. The original hat was an old black felt cloche I had lying around, and I turned up the brim to make it look more like the hat the character wears. I put the lights on first, which went well, but when it came to covering it with the velvet, I ran into some problems. The fabric predictably bunched up in weird places, and I ended up cutting it down the sides of the hat in a number of places, which I then sewed shut to finish it and keep it together.

Makeup, Accessories, and Wig

The original character in the book’s face is the same color as the suit, with stars covering it. I decided, however, that I would rather go for something a little simpler than covering my whole face in dark blue paint. The makeup fades from a dark purple to black, and has white stars drawn on in eyeliner. I also went with a dark blue lipstick. You can see a full tutorial of how to do this look here.

The accessories are fairly simple, since I knew they wouldn’t be a huge point of interest compared to the lights. I went with a simple silver star stud and dangle, both of which I bought a long time ago and no longer have links for. I made a simple tie out of the velvet, and used a black button up sleeveless shirt.

When I was thinking about the hair for this character, I knew I wanted to go with something dark and short, and after a little looking around, I went for this 1910’s-20’s style wig. It’s entirely synthetic, but it’s really great quality, and doesn’t look fake at all when seen in person. You can buy it on Etsy here.

There’s also a series of YouTube videos documenting the process of making this, as well as some dramatic videos! If you’d like to check that out, you can find it here!

Acknowledgments

Thank you so much to my mom, who helped sew down the lights on the pants and jacket, took the dramatic photos, and was a great sounding board for tricky problems! Thank you as well to Make: for funding this.