I really love seeing good fan fashion. At Celebration my friend Jazz and some of his other friends had a panel on fan fashion, and I had to go there. It was a really interesting panel, and Jazz made an interesting observation that for many years it was hard finding anything for women, since the basic fan fashion was a male t-shirt, nowadays though there are a lot of different designs available for women, but men are stuck with basic black t-shirts with a print in the middle of the front.
The panel divided fan fashion into three areas; Convention wear, Prom wear and Everyday wear. Convention wear is when you take a costume, but use it as an inspiration. Prom wear of course is for fancy dress, and everday wear is the more subtle things. For example my Greedo dress is everyday wear, since I can walk in it without people immediately recognizing it as a fandom thing. Quite a few of the panelists went up and showed what they wore, but I didn't get any pictures of that. Here are some of my favorite fan fashion pieces that I met though.
These ladies had taken printed Star Wars fabrics that you can find in regular tores and used them for making clothes of. The first fan fashion pieces that I saw were usually made of bedsheets and curtains, but now there are cotton fabrics available on the roll if you want a Star Wars fabric.
Another way of expressing your fandom is to take a costume and translate it to another style. 1950's is deinitely popular. These were some of my favorites, and I loved that the Leia outfit had made the quilted patches over the hips that are there on the original jumpsuit.
Then of course you have Holly, who makes her own gorgeous prints. I feel very privileged that I got the permission to use her Greedo fabric, but she has so many different designs that she has made and turned into nice clothes. When I met her she wore this great ensemble.
There are so many amazing costumes at Celebration, and I have hardly taken any photos of them. Here are my favorites that I ran into though.
Earlier this year a very talented member of the Rebel Legion put up the design of the embroidery on Leia's Bespin Gown. This is a costumer that I ran into that had bought the fabric so I could finally see what it was like for real. I also stood beside the designer at the RL photoshoot and got the chance to thank her for making this gown so much more accessible to costumers.
Ever since Disney bought Star Wars there has been quite a lot of Disney/Star Wars mash up costumes done. This was my favorite pair and especially Merida's lightbow was amazing up close.
There are also the fun/humorous costumes, like this Bothan Walking around the floor.
For the Running of the Hoods, the humans were also joined by a Jawa and a wookiee.
That must have been so hot to run around in.
One of the best costumes was this Jawa with BB-8 though.
It's actually an adult, with the head in the BB-8 dome, but it looked like the Jawa was carrying him around. Both the Jawa costume and BB-8 was really well done and together it was perfect.
My favorite costume of the weekend was this really handsome Bail Organa. Yes, I am a total Bail Organa fangirl, and just seeing this costume made me happy, but then I almost died when he had the rest of his family with him.
The Breha costume was really well done, and the little girl's real name is actually Leia. Awwwwwww. It really was a perfect family cosplay.
I'm back from a week of travelling, and four full days of Star Wars Celebration madness. Madness is really the best way to describe it, which I guess is what you get when you gather 75 000 fans in one place. It also didn't help that there was quite a few examples of really bad managment, but thankfully I didn't personally suffer from it, mostly because I made a choice not trying to get into the major panels but happy to just go to the smaller events and didn't want to go after any exclusives.
This is a blog about costumes though, so I will concentrate on that here. I've divided it into three parts; what I wore, other people's costumes and finally fan fashion. I had decided not to go for any big costumes, but rather just pieces that were comfortable and easy to pack, I still had a few outfits though.
It actually started on Wednesday before the Celebration when me and a group from the three main costuming groups went to an Afternoon Tea. For this tea I decided to go for a Queen Amidala inspired vintage look. I'm going to write a separate post about this outfit later, but one thing that's not visible is the 50's half hat that I've posted some info about earlier.
I wore the coat part of the outfit to the 501st banquet on Friday as well. Then I paired it with some sleek black trousers and a hair updo, I didn't get a single photo of that evening though, but I actually think I prefer that overall look.
The costume I spent the most time in was the X-wing pilot. I didn't bring the helmet with me, and I didn't wear the gloves. It was basically a "briefing scene"-version. The main reason for bringing the pilot was that I had paid for a photo with Denis Lawson, who plays Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy.
I also met up with Sigge in his TFA pilot outfit.
And on Sunday I wore it again and walked around a bit with Ingeli in her TIE reserve pilot.
The other proper costume that I wore was my Mon Mothma costume. I had it on for the Rebel Legion group photo, but didn't get any individual photos of that one either. In a weird way of costume misidentification I got called Aunt Beru in it though.
A reason for me not wearing Mon Mothma so much was that the RL group photo was on the same day as the Running of the Hoods. The Running of the Hoods is hard to explain for non-hardcore fans, but it's great fun being part of around 70 people running around in orange, shouting about "Ice Cream". I must say that I have abeen a trendsetter here. Last year in London I brought my giant IKEA moustache, and this year the Germans had bought a load of them and gave them away to people. I learnt in London that it's hotter and more taxing than you might think to run in slow motion for an hour or so, so I this year I made sure to bring a water bottle and I didn't have the giant wig.
Me and Ryan as moustache twins
All the Willrows
And for some live action there is the stream from the Star Wars live action show. I think I linked to the right mark, otherwise it's around 4h35m in.
The outfit that I get most compliments for though, even if people don't stop and take photos, is my Greedo dress. I was really happy that I could run into Holly, who designed the fabric, while I was wearing the dress.
On Thursday evening there was an evening celebration for Carrie Fisher. I decided on Saturday to go, so I hadn't prepared anything for it. The dress code was dress up or cosplay, and since I knew a few of my friends were bringing gowns and tuxedos, I went for one of my ballgowns.
This is a gown that I made in 2005 and it consists of two parts. It's a black undergown, that's a gown in itself with a flurry of chiffon ruffles. Over it is simply a large piece of silk that's been draped. I made it like that before I was simply too afraid of cutting into the fabric, so it's just sewn together at the shoulders, and then I've tied a black sash at the waist to keep it in shape. Originally it was worn with a black corset, but I think I prefer this softer look. The pattern on the fabric resembles hazy moons, so in honour of Carrie Fisher I think I'm going to call this my "Drowning in moonlight"-gown from now on.
Me and some friends at the gala.
Overall the Mon Mothma costume and X-wing pilot will probably be my go to costumes for conventions, both are easy to pack and nice and comfortable to wear. I'm inspired to make more pieces like the Greedo dress though.
Even if there has come out quite a few Star Wars jewellery options over the last years, I haven't been happy about the earring selection. It's mostly studs of different characters and ships.
One of the panels I'm planning on going to at Star Wars Celebrations it he Fantasy Flight Games panel, since I play X-wing the miniatures game. The ships in the game are small and very lightweight, so I decided to see if I could turn them into a pair of earrings. I told my sister about it, and since she went through a period when she did quite a few pearl/bead pieces, she still had both the tools, the beads and the knowledge on how to do it.
In the end I simply told her that I wanted the earrings to be the X-wing models, but blinged up a bit.
Here she is working with tying some wire around the x-wing. I didn't want to glue anything on it, or make a permanent hole, since I still want to be able to play the game with them.
These are the final pieces. They are long and dangly, so I've had a tendency to catch the collar of my jacket on them, but I'm not going to use that in Orlando
And here is a bit blurry close. The earrings are made of a piece of thin metal wire, tied around the x-wing. The beads above the ship are also treaded on the same wire an then attached to the hook. The two red beads are also on wire, that has been attached to the loop of the wire going around the ship. I'm calling these my Red Two earrings, since there are two red beads and of course it's in honour of Wedge Antilles my favorite x-wing pilot in the films.
