gankutsuou - haydee tebelin III

Photography (c) Josephy Chi Lin

I originally wore this costume for the DC Sakura Matsuri Fashion Show, but per the photographer's request I brought her out to AUSA 2011. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Haydee's one of his favourite characters so we ended up shooting for several hours which yielded a number of amazing shots.

Costume details:

Upon trying to think of something appropriately 'pretty' to cosplay, I had a sudden epiphany after hours of fruitless brainstorming and remembered how way back in early 2006 I had wanted to cosplay Haydee from Gankutsuou. Admittedly, I hadn't given the series much thought in years despite having loved it and went back and watched the opera house scene to catch all 2 seconds you actually see of this dress. All in all, this costume was a lot of fun to make and took me maybe the grand total of 4 hours not counting the three weeks spent procrastinating. And oh so tacky.

I wanted the dress to be very sheer and super shiny. Finding an iridescent organza proved to be more difficult than ever anticipated and after realizing that the only seller online who carried it was in China, I began hunting for an alternative locally which turned out to be an adventure in itself. 8 yards eventually went into this costume. The fabric was fairly easy to work with but wanted to disintegrate when I simply looked at it -- this was not conducive when trying to thread 18 gauge wire through channels. Also, I cannot ever iron this dress because it would probably melt faster than Nazis looking at the Lost Ark. The dress was partially made from a pattern, though most of it was simply draped on a dressform. Strands of pearls were sewn along the bodice. The gems are a mixture of acrylic & Swarovski -- $60 total -- and super glued on -- yes, Gem Tac takes forever to dry. I had initially wanted to use nothing but Swarovski but I was on a time crunch and it was cheaper/faster to buy acrylic gems instead. The jewelery is made from a glitter foamy that's been sealed on the back w/ Mod Podge. An assortment of rhinestones & pearls were glued on in various patterns. This was the best part of making this costume. Such tacky terrible bling. Elf ears were purchased and lightened w/ a pale pinkish white foundation and attached w/ spirit gum.

The wig is a Silver 40" long from Epic Cosplay with additional wefts that was twice dyed w/ an FW Ink + alcohol mixture. Unfortunately, the colour did not take as dark as I had hoped, but the end product worked well enough. I had never anticipated not being able to find a 40" long dark green wig w/o bangs but clearly they no longer exist. Wefts were glued around woven pipe cleaners and accented w/ crystal scrapbooking appliques & rhinestones.