LeakyCon Costuming

Ideally I would have posted this a while ago when I finally received my last costume piece in the mail. However, due to some sizing concerns, all of my costumes have at least one piece that is being altered. I won't get them back until the end of this month, and I wanted to wait to post this until then so I could just include my costuming video in this blog post. Since I can't make the video at this point, and I didn't want to wait to post it in case people are looking for some last-minute costume inspiration, I thought I'd post it now and post the costume parade video when it's complete at the end of the month.

Last year at Infinitus, I remember marveling at the amazingly accurate and stunning costumes some fans put together and wishing that I could be that creative. Well, this year I went for it. I started out wanting just to put together a Luna Lovegood costume, then I decided to dress as Narcissa Malfoy for the ball on Saturday because I couldn't find anything, and her sense of style has always appealed to my dark side. Then, I found the crowning glory of all HP costumes (in my opinion) right after buying my first Narcissa costume piece. You see, after I read GoF, all I wanted was to dress up as Fleur. Then, I saw the movie, and their costumes captured my heart with their adorable little Hershey kiss hats! I scoured the internet for several years, but all I found were people who had made their own reproductions for themselves and weren't willing to sell them online. I decided last year that I'd have to find someone in person to make one for me. Then, I realized how much that would cost, and I gave up...until I saw one for sale on etsy! So, we'll start by examining my Fleur Delacour costume.

As I said, I found the dress first (note that the seller no longer makes custom Beauxbatons uniforms due to some issues in past transactions), but it didn't come with a hat. Though the hat pictured is sold on etsy by a different seller, I didn't like it as much as I could have. So, I found another Beauxbatons hat for about $100 (there are also other Beauxbatons hats that go up to about $145). I know that seems like a lot (especially since the dress alone is $125), but I knew I'd be happy with it and didn't want to settle just to save some money. Also, the woman who made my hat worked with me a lot to make sure it matched the uniform exactly, even going out of her way to mail me scraps to compare for myself. So, I'd HIGHLY recommend her!

The shoes were a bit more difficult. Luckily, oxford heels are in right now, so it wasn't that difficult to find them online. However, it was difficult to find a pair under $50, in my size, that looked like the ones she wore in the movie, and that I thought I could walk in without breaking my ankle. I eventually found these. I also found this post about how best to paint shoes. We ran out and bought some primer, two shades of blue paint, and some sealer and went about painting the shoes. They aren't quite finished yet, so I won't post a picture since they're not very pretty as of right now with just one coat of paint.

Fleur's jewelry was a bit more difficult since she doesn't appear to be wearing any with her uniform in GoF. So, I decided something elegant but simple would work best. Since I love the fleur de lis and didn't own any smaller silver earrings with it, I scoured etsy again for some cute ones. I found these and fell in love with the design as well as the $5 price tag!

I also bought a little purse since I need to carry so much with me at conventions (pens, notebooks, a camera, my phone, my telescope and magnifier, etc.) and didn't have one that matched as well as I would have liked. I also found that on etsy for about $30.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my Fleur Delacour costume. The grand total was around $400 with makeup, stockings, alterations, and everything.

After I made my plan for Fleur, I moved onto deciding what Narcissa might wear to a formal affair. After years of loving Narcissa, studying pictures from the movies, and trying to get into the character's mind, I felt like I had a pretty good sense of her style. It's stylish but refined, Dark but subtle.

That said, I also wanted a corset to be a part of this costume, mainly just because I love them and felt like I'd be able to find one I would wear again (which is my goal for the majority of my costumes...if I'm spending hundreds of dollars on costuming, I will wear elements of them again and again). So, one of my RP characters (Mehren Blair) also served as a bit of inspiration since she never leaves home without a corset. So, that was the first item I found. I spent hours searching for a classy but pretty green corset because I wanted to go with a subtle Dark Arts/Slytherin theme for this costume. I eventually found this one which didn't come in my size. So, I had to have it altered.

Given Narcissa's sense of style, I wanted a more fitted skirt to go with the corset to class it up a bit more. So, I found this skirt in black on etsy.

I knew Narcissa would probably never leave the house in just a corset, so I sought out a bolero to go over it. I wanted it to have a higher neck line to be along the lines of what she wears in the movies. I found a few that I liked that were fairly cheap, but I ended up getting a dress at Kohls for a wedding that came with a bolero. Since my mom had bought the dress, I wasn't going to argue with a free bolero! I tried it on with the corset, and it went just as well as the one I was going to buy online!

The next item I knew I wanted was a hat! Last year at Infinitus, there were the most beautiful witch hats I've ever seen! I knew I wanted a decorated hat for LC this year! I searched etsy for a while, knowing I wanted a smaller hat that was a bit more reserved than the ones I was finding. Through my search, I eventually decided I wanted a birdcage veil as well. I knew finding a green hat was out of the question if I wanted it to match the corset. So, I started searching for small black witch hats (because I just can't see Narcissa wearing some of the over-the-top witch hats out there, and it had to be able to be transported in a shoe box in my suitcase so it didn't get crushed on the way to LeakyCon) and found this one for about $9. I decided that, for that price, we decorate it and still come out cheaper than most of the ones sold on etsy (which range from about $30-$100). So, we bought the cute little cocktail hat, removed the spiderweb netting, and ran out to Michaels for feathers, fabric, glue, etc. This is also still a work in progress, so you'll have to wait for the costume parade video to see it as well!

Jewelry was next for Narcissa. I wanted to go with a snake theme, preferably the ouroboros given its great symbolism and nod to Hydra (a Dark Arts/purist RP group I ran for adults a while back). I found some great ouroboros earrings on etsy for fairly cheap, but I couldn't decide what to put with them. Then, I found the “dancing snakes necklace” and loved it! It went so well with the ouroboros earrings and seemed quite like something Narcissa would wear!

As I said, my goal was to buy only items I would wear again. However, this wasn't always within reason if I also wanted my costumes to be accurate, so if you like the earrings or necklace above, they will be on sale after LeakyCon on ebay for about $7 and $16 respectively, exactly as much as I paid for them originally.

Then, my Narcissa costume was finished, coming in at around $180 including everything but the shoes and a snakeskin clutch which I already had in my closet.

The Luna costume was the one I'd wanted to do for a while. The main reason was because everyone, despite my desire to be compared to Fleur in terms of looks, kept telling me how much I resembled Luna (I guess since they didn't get her “dirty blonde” hair quite right in the movies, the platinum look was cemented in people's minds...don't get me wrong, I LOVE Luna in the movies and in general). So, I thought I'd make them happy and dress up like her for one conference. Plus, I'd wanted a Ravenclaw uniform for a while now.

I already had a uniform skirt from my Slytherin uniform. I bought it from Whimsic Alley because when I was putting my Slytherin costume together, I couldn't find a grey skirt that was suitable (it was winter and school uniforms weren't quite on sale).

I also purchased my Ravenclaw sweater from Whimsic Alley because I couldn't find a cardigan anywhere else, and Luna more often wears a cardigan or sweater vest in the movies.

I bought my tie on ebay because it was cheaper than Whimsic Alley.

Next were the famous spectrespecs! They sell them various places, but I wanted the plastic ones, not the cardboard ones that would fall apart the second I put them on my face. I was torn about buying them because I knew I wouldn't be able to wear them for long due to the fact that they make everything about 100 times brighter than it should be which will probably give me a migraine. I decided I could just put them on my head if I got too tired of it, though. I ended up buying them on ebay for the cheapest price I could find after looking around--$12 (of course immediately after I placed the order, WB sent me a coupon code for my birthday which would have made the ones in the WB shop cheaper, but oh well).

Then I found myself trying to find a set of Luna's famous jewelry to save a bit of money. I found one on etsy for fairly cheap and grabbed it up.

Last year at Infinitus, the main fad was to wear a homemade pygmy puff around on your shoulder. They were everywhere! I wanted to buy one, but by the time we made it to the craft fair to buy some, there weren't really any great colors left. So, I made it my mission to find one online. The crafters from the fair didn't sell them online, so I had a task ahead of me! Around the time I found my Beauxbatons uniform on etsy, I found a girl who made pygmy puffs there as well. We ordered three (one for me, one for Brae, and one for our contest winner), and there were some shipping problems. We received a perfectly sealed envelope with one pygmy puff in it. I contacted the seller to see if she was planning on shipping the three puffs separately. She said she'd included them all in the envelope. She also said she would contact etsy to see what she should do. A few weeks later, I emailed her back to see what etsy had told her; she claimed that they had said she wasn't responsible. I was mad but willing to accept it because I'm a fairly easy customer and just wanted to forget about it. Then, I looked at etsy's policies (because I'm opening up my own etsy shop in the future and wanted to make sure I was very familiar with how things worked) and saw that sellers should reimburse customers that don't receive things in the mail. Hm...So, I contacted the original seller and told her this, saying I'd just email our entire correspondence to etsy (because now I was mad that she'd lied to me) and see what they had to say. She immediately offered to refund our money for the two we hadn't received. Fishy, yes?

Since we still very much wanted our pygmy puffs and didn't trust this seller to get them to us, we contacted this seller on etsy and gave her the same pattern that the original etsy seller used and asked her to make two pygmy puffs according to our specifications through a custom order. She agreed, only charging us about $13 (including shipping). So, after an ordeal online, we did receive our pygmy puffs! (Note: the second seller now sells these without having to place a custom order and my little blue pygmy puff, Asha, is now the model!)

But we weren't done yet! I asked Brae to ask his friend who is a graphic designer if she could make me a Quibbler. It's not ready either, but look for it in the video (hopefully) or at LeakyCon if it's not quite ready when it's time to film the costume parade!

So, my Luna costume is almost complete! It should come in around $160 including makeup, a white button down shirt, tights, etc. except shoes which I also already had in my closet.

And that brings us to the end of our exploration of Kat's LeakyCon costumes! I hope I helped create a bit of inspiration to make your own LeakyCon ensembles and gave a few helpful links to great sellers and crafters. If you have any costuming questions, feel free to ask!