wear your passion

I've always been the sort of person to dabble in crafts; I paint, I draw, I sew, I embroider. I cross-stich; I recently finished a large cross-stitch of our old cat, and it's in pride of place in our living room.

But what I've done most of is making cosplay.

Cos-play as a word is an amalgamation of 'costume' and 'play'. It encompasses a wide range of things, but the core of it is dressing up in a costume. It doesn't have to involve a specific character, necessarily; I've seen people dressing up as the embodiment of a season or emotion. I once saw someone dressed up as a sexy potato. It's quite loose, as a concept, and if you think you're cosplaying then fine, you probably are. Personally, I like picking a character from something and trying to replicate their outfit--sometimes it's very challenging, and sometimes it's not as hard as you might think.

I met my wife because she asked me online to dress up as a character from a videogame we both liked--I'd never cosplayed before, and we met up so she could help me and reasssure me as I bought and cut fabric, pinned things together, readjusted and reattempted to try and make something look like it did onscreen. She showed me how to be less fearful of mistakes, how to break down the work into smaller tasks. By the time we got around to wearing our costumes together at an event, we were in love with each other, and I was in love with cosplay.

We've cosplayed together many times since. We've made endless jackets and dresses and shorts, fashioned armour and hats and bags and boots. I've styled wigs into curls and braids and bouffants. I've made swords out of heat-moldable plastics. I've made chainmail. We've worn out two sewing machines and an adjustable mannequin. I've gone through several pairs of shears and a ridiculous number of hairdresser's scissors. I've sawn through wooden poles and cut open plastic bottles and used giant canisters of glue. I've sewn acres of seams, and painstakingly stitched on buttons and sequins and fur trims. I've travelled to other countries for competitions and meetups. I've made hundreds of friends. I've even learned how to be a semi-decent photographer along the way, just to document and record everything.

I pick my sources from far and wide, personally--Disney villainesses, cartoon heroes, videogame protagonists, stage outfits from theatre shows, classic fairytale heroines. I've worn whatever my fancy: if I see a coat I like onscreen? I work out how to replicate it, and even better, it's tailored exactly to my size and shape. I know other people who get right into the nitty-gritty of one costume, and work and work at perfecting it precisely--sourcing the same dress that was used in the movie, rigging up lights or puppetry, weaving their own fabrics, or even forging their own plate armour!

These days, I actually make my living selling cosplay supplies online--fabrics, plastics, wigs. Not entire costumes, just the components for the other people like me and my wife, who want the challenge and the joy of creating.

The side-effect of running a business like this is that I get to see what people make; they send us pictures, proudly, of all they've created. We're sent in pictures by drag queens, theatres, cruise liners, fashion students, and of course we love those too, but the real joy for us is seeing people playing at being a character they admire or think interesting or beautiful. I've seen glorious creations, far beyond my skill level, fantastical gowns and intricate work and giant armoured wonders.

And I go out there, in my own work, and play at costuming with people like that, and with new creators who are just learning how to sew simple seams or paint bits of cardboard, and with old hands like myself who know and use all the shortcuts we think we can get away with. We trade knowledge, we enthuse about each other's work, we share our passion for the source materials, we pay tribute to movies and books and tv shows that have inspired us.

It's been my life for a dozen years. And it's a joy.