Code Geass: DVD Art

Wow finally uploading pictures of this costume >__<
And yes... I fail at titles DX
Made for and worn at Avcon this year.

Photography by
Edit by me.

Hell, this costume was a lot of work. I'd like to explain a bit about how it was made as I spent a bit of time and money on it.
Firstly the inner-most layer (purple) is made from poplin, the cheapest part of the costume I think orz

The next layer is white silk. I wanted to use a fabric that had a sheen to it but not so shiny, this silk was perfect.

The outer layer is Japanese Chirimen. It's a traditional Japanese crepe that is used in alot of craft and sewing. It was originally white but I had to gradient dye it to match the artwork. The red didn't come out as dark as I was hoping so after the purple was dyed I went back and did the red again DX
The black wings on the outer layer are all hand painted with fabric paint using a template I made.
It is lined with blue poplin.

The belt is made from silk dupion lined with heavy interfacing on each side to make it stiff. The gold edging is a 15mm metallic gold ribbon sewn to the edge and caught in the seam. The chain pattern on the belt is a metallic jacquard ribbon which I measured and pinned by hand before sewing along the edges on the machine with metallic gold thread.

The red ribbon is a 50mm grosgrain that I sliced into with a scalpel and threaded a white 10mm satin ribbon through and the cord on the belt is actually piping cord that I dyed red to match.

All the belt parts are sewn together and attached at the top to a plastic covered coat hanger that I cut up into a long 'u' shape so that it could be inserted into the back of the belt around my waist. This was so there was no need to tie difficult knots and to make it easy to take the costume off in a hurry.

The truly awful part about this costume was using the chirimen fabric. It tends to shrink when it's wet, and by shrink I mean the crepe weave shrivels up real tight.
I had to stretch it back to it's original size after dying it by using the iron and literally pulling the fabric as I pressed with the iron. Then after I painted the wings it needed to be stretched again DX

I'm pretty proud of this costume, especially because I used so many pretty fabrics and ribbons, and the dying was a nightmare but I'm so pleased with the way it turned out.
I also came second Best Female at Avcon!