Black Lady - Black Dress #1

Black Lady, Sailormoon R, Naoko Takeuchi

COSPLAY ID

CHARACTER Black Lady
SOURCE Sailormoon manga & Sailormoon R anime, by Naoko Takeuchi

COSTUME Black Lady's only dress

COSPLAY BREAKDOWN

• black silky dress with transparent sleeves, side slashes, lined in cherry red
• pink wig with floor length pigtails
• Dark Moon Earrings
  
• cherry red stole
• blue underskirt
• reddish high heels
  
• Luna-P Ball
  

Another throwback post... the next one will be more Hokuto progress, I promise! It's this time of the year, Carnival. 

Today, it's my 25th cosplay anniversary! Instead of talking about my 20th anniversary costume, I talked about it on Valentine's Day, because it's a Valentine's Day outfit, I decided to make a big throwback and talk about my very first cosplay and how I started.

Back in 1994, I made a long awaited trip to London. I hadn't been in the UK since the early 80's, so I went to visit my best friend, studying there. One of the things on the list was to visit the Forbidden Planet store, then at New Oxford Street. If London was a Mecca for me, the Forbidden Planet was it's Alladdin Cave. There, I bought two things that changed my life: the first volume of the VIZ Comics English translation of Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½, and an issue of Anime UK magazine, edited by Helen McCarthy. After I got home, I subscribed the magazine and ordered the back issues. I subscribed it until it changed its name to Anime FX, and then until it was gone forever. Every month, I eagerly awaited the magazine to arrive on the post, and read it from cover to cover. It opened up a whole new world for me. With it I found the Japanese band Pizzicato Five, a ton of anime authors, and, amongst a lot of other things, Cosplay! It was a small article, in one of the first issues, about the cosplayers at Comiket, in Tokyo. In one of the photos there was this girl, in a black posh dress, with pigtails in her own hair. Anime UK also introduced me to one if my favourite anime and manga series, Sailormoon. Fast forward a few years, I managed to get the first 3 volumes of the Sailormoon manga (in Japanese), from a Paris store, and Sailormoon started playing on our TV, after a few years of a strange anime draught on Portuguese TV. I also started learning Japanese, where I reconnected with Pedro, an acquaintance whom became one of my best friends until today. Pedro used to organise fabulous parties, and one of the the first ones he invited me to, was a masquerade party, around the Carnival celebrations.

 

Party invitation, 19.02.1996,
from my Graphic Diary, with photocopied, cut out
and coloured artwork from the manga Sailormoon.

That was the trigger! I already had around 10 years experience sewing, I loved to dress up, but there were no geek events or a big tradition of masquerading in Lisbon. In fact, it was a bit frowned upon. I decided on Black Lady, because she was a villain with a lot of pathos, a nice sad story, and a gorgeous but simple dress, I knew I could work it out.

I quickly went to buy the fabrics, a thick cotton satin, from Casa Tavares, black tulle, probably from Feira dos Tecidos, where it is cheap. But the pink long hair was throwing me off. The only wigs in unnatural colours around were in bright primary colours, and much too short. My own hair was too short, a long bob at the time, and thinking of dyeing it pink was out of question. I asked at the Doll Hospital shop if they sold wefts, got a big fat unpolite NO. So, after much thinking about it, I decided to make it from scratch, with wool.

I got some pink tulle for the cap, 5 or 6 skeins of thin pink baby wool, probably from Lãs Aires, a great yarn store downtown, that doesn't exist anymore, and a few scraps of upholstery foam, from Pollux. I first made the cap, much like a normal cap, in 6 wedge sections, and fitted it to my head the best I could. Then I marked the parting, the bangs and the ponytails placement. Cut a bunch of strands, double the length plus a bit for each section, and started "ventilating" them. I don't remember if I started with the ponytail sections or the bangs, probably the ponytails, but I remember first following the outer lines and the parting lines, and then lightly filling the middle, until I had enough volume and density. After the wig part was done, and I was happy with the fit, I measured the ponytails' length, to be about 10 cm from the floor, placed two chairs at the measured length in my living room, and started to wind the ponytails around it. My cat, Bibi, was being very annoying, playing with the wool, I had to quarantine her in the kitchen. I think I used 2 skeins for each ponytail. When I had enough volume, I tied one end tightly, and cut the opposite end. To make the bunny ears, I cut the foam into flattened cone shapes, glued them into cones, with contact glue, and then gathered the base to get a drop shape. Then I wound the wool around them, trying to get a latticed, yarn ball effect. After the ears were covered, I sewed the ponytails to the wig, and the bunny ears on top.

I actually started with the dress, it just took me around 2 days to make it, it took me one week to make the wig. Back then, because I didn't know the proper colours, only had the B&W manga as a source, and was on a tight schedule, I made everything in black. The idea was to first make the transparent part of the dress in tulle, because it was cheap and easily available, and later replace it with black chiffon. The gems on the dress were another saga. Back then, not many shops sold plastic gems, there was basically one shop, Casa Batalha, which sold costume jewellery pieces and beads, but in the late 1990's the store entered a downwards curve, started by the big Chiado fire in 1988, the clerks became progressively unpolite, and they were selling less and less individual pieces. I remember I found out the haberdashery store usually go to, Adriano Coelho, had plastic gems, and got them there. Not exactly like the artwork, they were round and oval, but they had to do.

Onto the dress. I made a sleek 1930's inspired pattern, to be cut on the bias, tight from the hips up, widening in a semi-circle skirt from the hips down, with two slashes on the sides. I made the dress separately from the transparent part, already thinking about replacing it later. I also made a facing for the scalloped neck and arm openings. Added bust darts and 4 waist darts, 2 to the front, 2 to the back, for extra fitting. It zips in the back, with an invisible zipper. I cut the transparent part in 3 pieces, made the 2 sleeves separately, and then basted them to the armholes. Made the chest part without seams, to open in the back, on top of the zipper, and also basted it to the neck and back openings. The collar and cuffs were simple rectangles, folded in half,  with the gems sewn on top of them. All close with 2 snaps each.

So, as I was in a crunch, not all went very smoothly. I remember, a few hours before the party, to be finishing winding the wool on the bunny ears, at my friend's living room, while my friend's mom sewed the snaps to my cuffs, while I was already wearing the dress!

I put the wig on, when I was finished with it, put nice black high heels on and partied all night! It was a fun party and my costume was a great success, even though everybody kept calling me Sailormoon. The Sailormoon R series wasn't airing on our TV yet, so, most people didn't know the character. And I was overdressed, most people wore recycled vintage clothes. But I still had loads of fun, and my life as a cosplayer started on that day. 

 

Black Lady dress + wool wig

The following year, I wore the dress to a few events, took it to the Amadora BD, a comic book festival at a nearby city, wore it at small events for the anime company I briefly worked for, and another masquerade party, this time at my friend's Maria João's birthday. But, having watched the episodes, having bought more Sailormoon manga and anime-comics, where I could see the proper colours, I made a few changes.

I replaced the tulle from the dress with black chiffon, as planned, bought at Santo Condestável, never found squarish gems anywhere, lined the dress with cherry red taffeta, added a blue chiffon underskirt, and replaced thr black tulle shawl with a cherry red stiff tulle. I never got to make the earrings, I eventually found blackish droplet crystals, and had the ear clips (I don't have pierced ears), but never found those fleur-de-lis trinkets, that connect the crystals to the ear clips. I also never got to make the Luna-P Ball, I usually carried a black umbrella in replacement, but I wanted to make it out of a rubber ball.

And... the wig is heavy and a bit uncomfortable.

+ the dress was quite easy to make and, when it fitted me, it was very flattering. 

- the wig is too heavy and uncomfortable, needs some kind of inner structure, and well, it looks "woolly". When I added the changes, I made a few mistakes, I had some trouble with the lining, it doesn't drape well, and the chiffon on the back opening gapes a lot, but the only way to have it close like in the artwork, would make it very complicated to put on by myself. And I'm still sad I never made de earrings.

THE CUNNING PLAN 

Maybe one day I'll get back to this costume, it doesn't fit me anymore, finally make the earrings and Luna-P. But for now,  it's just an anthological piece of my cosplay history inside my closet. 

Start thinking about a 30th Cosplay Anniversary costume? Maybe my dream costume, a Star Wars, screen accurate, Imperial Guard.