Costumes don't have to be of a specific character. That's why this is the Costume Closet and not the Cosplay Closet. Slight difference in focus on all costumes regardless of origin. Because most of my costume experience comes from Halloween and Ren Fairs! That's what I did before I got into cosplay.
In these cases I'm looking at more of a Concept for a costume not a pre-made or designed character. Like dressing up as a cat, robot or vampire for Halloween.
Concept Interpretation
The big thing we're coming up with or "designing" is the interpretation of the concept.
There are all sorts of angles to approach a concept. It may just be in your head already! Maybe it was a doodle or some kind of visual thing you wanted to build around. Or maybe you found a sewing pattern.
Other times, you may try brainstorming the concept. Now there's not a solid one method for this but here are a few things I do. (Granted, some of these things are done in my head but I'm going to explain them as if I wrote them on paper. And sometimes it is on paper.)
Word Association
If you have ever made a bubble brainstorm map this is kind of what that is. You write down (or think) the concept.
For example: Vampire.
You then list off or branch off the few words you think of or associate with the concept of Vampire.
Vampire
- Fangs
- Blood
- Gothic
- Sexy
- Victorian
- Red
- Black
- Pale
We can think of these as first-degree associations. What you most relate to the concept or word is going to be unique to you and your experience. The word Vampire might make you think of something more modern or perhaps more of a creature. There are no wrong answers.
Now from this list, to further define things we can use for design, we might look at secondary associations.
Vampire
- Fangs
- Blood
- Gothic
- Sexy
- Victorian
- Red
- Black
- Pale
From my list, I'm going to zero in on a couple of words: Gothic and Victorian. I'll do some word association with these words to create the secondary associations.
It might look something like this:
Gothic
- Dark Colors
- Black
- Crosses
- Cathedrals
- Lace
Victorian
- British Society
- Bustle Skirts
- Corsets
- Steampunk
- Grey
There are some similar associations with the word vampire but this gives us a few more terms to work with. From this collection of words, I can pick out ones I like.
Now in my case, I pick Fangs, Gothic, Corset, Sexy, Black to be my focus. This will inform my image search and design decisions. As you can see, these themes are incorporated into my vampire.
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Vampire
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Image Association
Similar to word association, this is just utilizing image search engines (like google or Pinterest) where I type in my concept idea and see what others have done. Then collect my favorite images to use as my inspiration.
For my Broken Doll costume I looked into Alice in Wonderland and Porcelain doll costume and makeup for this project. It's how I decided what pattern and colors to use.
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Broken Doll Makeup
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Broken Doll Dress
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Costume Part
Sometimes there may be a particular costume thing you want to make, like a mask or a corset or some funky footwear or perhaps a make-up challenge. This becomes the core inspiration of the costume. Decisions about other parts of the costume are made to compliment the main part of the costume.
One year I really wanted to do a Sugar Skull make-up design. Picked costume parts I had on hand that I thought would compliment the costume.
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| Sugar Skull |
I wore muted, dark colors to make the makeup pop. (Actually the image is the practice run...I can't find my actual costume images! 😖)
Full-Blown Images in Mind
On a rare occasion, I have a detailed image in my mind of the concept and what it should look like. I don't need to do research, I just need to find or make the parts.
I had the idea of a "plague fairy godmother" and doodled the idea down. (Similar to the image below.)
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| I doodled something like this. |
It turned out to be very similar to the image no? I expanded later to what was under the mask and gloves to be something very spooky. Technically it was also a costume core idea because I wanted to do a Plague Mask.
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| A Plague Nurse? |
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| Nope...just nightmare fuel! |
Solidifying the Concept
The idea is to create something of a vision board or to gather your favorite references. Not everything in the vision board (or in our case a Pinterest Board) will be incorporated into the final design. A helpful exercise is to write down something about why you chose each image in the board. What did you like most about it? Why did you add it? What part do you plan to incorporate?
The reasons for adding an image to the board can be anything from something you want to imitate directly, color concepts, mood/feeling, or technique to try. Sometimes it is as simple as "I liked how it looked".
Drafting the Concept
While not required, I like to doodle out my concept and what I want it to look like. From there, I start looking for patterns, tutorials, materials and such to accomplish what I want. Similar to my other costume processes, the design process guides what I intend to purchase and how I want to make it.
I will say that many times, since I take a long time to make a costume, where I start with an idea isn't where I end up.
For example, I was going to do a Unicorn costume. I decided that I wanted it to have crystals and make a big poofy ballroom gown. As I was making the gown, I realized that the unicorn aspects were getting lost so I leaned into the Cinderella Ballgown aspect instead. But the idea of being PINK and full of crystals was from my original brainstorm for a crystal unicorn princess.
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| Fairytale Princess |
I hope this made some kind of sense. I like coming up with ideas for costume concepts. But sometimes things don't quite come together...
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| Supposed to be a robot |
It can take some practice. But however you come up with your concept, the goal is to have a guiding light for design decision.
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