The Source

See DJ Iroha for notes on IIDX.

The Costume (2009)

Celica’s hair is a distinctive pink-purple shade that was tricky to source. I ended up getting a short base wig and 2 clip on ponytails from Zephyr via Rakuten Japan. The fiber was an almost iridescent two tone that looked gorgeous. However, the ponytails were very extremely long and a real pain to detangle at the end of the day.

This was my first time buying and/or using clip on ponytails. The wig shipped out via Rakuten in a bag rather than a box. That was fine for the wig base, but was not so great for the ponytail clipons, one of which arrived DOA and couldn’t open to clip onto the wig. I cut the whole thing apart to debug it and found the handle had been smashed in transit, so I performed open clipon transplant surgery using a replacement clip from Walmart and then sutured the outer perimeter back together with elastic. In the end, it provided me with a good incentive to learn how clipon ponytails are constructed. (I could probably make my own now if I ever needed/wanted to.)

The shirt is made from 2 layers of the white 95/5 cotton spandex knit from the Joann’s dancewear section. This was definitely the most time consuming part of the costume, since fitting it at the armholes and especially the collar was rather difficult. The silver trim for the armhole edging/placket/collar top was a vaguely sateen-ish silver seasonal fabric from Joann’s that I lightly interfaced, carefully sewed on, and slipstitched in place to the shirt lining.

This was my first time sewing a placket (for the silver back closure), but I think I managed it all right in the end. Thanks to the ponytails keeping the hair up and out of the way, you can actually even see the work I put in to do it properly. :P The arm flaps are interfaced denim and close with velcro. The butt cape is also denim, so getting all the triangle points turned and pressed crisply was finger numbing work. The buttcape was probably the second most time consuming part of the costume. The black topstitching around the border took a while since it took a few tries to get a result that was clean enough to live with.

The legwarmers are white interfaced denim for the cuffs, red cotton bias tape (hand-made to match the red decals on the over-skirt and arm flaps), black twill for the bell-bottom part, and black interlock knit for the stocking pulled up underneath of it all. I installed a tidy zipper closure in each of the overflaps, which was very satisfying to put on. The shirt decal is simply some Sculpey with what I think might have been an R from a scrapbooking sticker set.

The first time I wore it for a IIDX group at Anime North 2009, it wasn’t quiiiiite done, but I finished it up a bit more for later conventions. I had a surprising amount of difficulty holding on to my vinyl DJ records due to the gloves and accidentally murdered a few by negligently allowing them to fall to their deaths on the pavement. :(

Photos

Progress

Reference