Like most people, the first costume I remember wearing was for Halloween. I must have been six or seven and unlike most Halloweens in Kansas City, it was cold and turned the usual rain to a hard crusty snow that today would have cancelled the regular American kinderfest. I don’t remember if I was supposed to be an astronaut or some other kind of space man. I clearly remember a plastic fish bowl worn nearly opaque with use tottering on my shoulders and made my breath echo, as I trooped from house to house with a pillowcase full of candy. My first pair of hiking boots and a set of grey cotton sweats stood in for the space suit. A big plastic vacuum cleaner tube was fastened to the back of the helmet with epoxy and strung either into a back pack or my suit, I don’t recall which, but it fell out at some point and I had to carry it for the rest of the night.
The rest is images: running through my neighbor’s yard,
panting into an echoing helmet, the snow crunching under my feet, the
orange-yellow glow of the street lights. I must have been happy.
It was the last time I would wear a costume
unselfconsciously. Like most people I
don’t try to draw attention to myself when I am in public and when I wear a
costume these days, I have a hard time not feeling absurd. A career in theatre hasn’t kept me from
feeling odd in someone else’s clothes, even if those clothes belong to a
fictional being. Oddly, it’s a feeling
that isn’t extended to wearing a uniform, which is a type of costume. Maybe
it’s the lack of choice or the fact that I am being paid changes that
calculation. I would even wear it home, whereas most of my colleagues would change
before leaving. With that said, I wouldn’t go out on the town
in my uniform. I also I have never been
asked to wear a mascot costume or had my face painted so I am not sure how I
would do in those kinds of roles. Even the adult Halloween costumes that have
grown in popularity make me feel itchy.
Yet, there is something really fascinating about seeing
someone in a well-constructed costume. I can’t help but drool over the costumes
that spill out of the coverage of the various big Cons. You can tell the people
that put a lot of work into what they are wearing. The look on their face, the focus is powerful.
Watching a video or watching a good cos-player is like watching a lawyer walk
out in a power suit, or a solider in a dress uniform on formal parade. There is
an inherent power in outfits like this, a symbol of real or implied power.
Comparing the well-made costume to a properly worn uniform
made me wonder if the quality of the costume had something to do with how I
felt about the experience or it really was just me being uncomfortable? Does
that confidence come from building the costume or is it in the wearing it? Is
it something else entirely? In order to
find out, I am in the process of building a Mandalorian
costume from scratch, using the specifications from the Mandalorian Mercs’ website. Here
are some pictures of what I have built so far, and I will post more as I
complete each step.
Step one: I downloaded and
cut out of paper the templets for a modern version of the costume. In Star Wars
canon there are a couple of era’s in Mandalorian History, each with their own
armor styles. The modern style is closer
to that of Boba Fett, though I am adding some of my own twists which you will
see as the costume progresses.
Step two: I made cardboard templates of the paper templates
to make sure I had the sizing right. These card board templates will get used
create the final armor plates that will be cut out of one of two 4’x4’ sheets of ADM, a type of PVC plastic.
Fitting these templates onto their
approximate location on the coveralls. Still feeling very goofy at this point.
Step Three: This is a mock-up of the vest that we will secure
the plates to when they have been cut and shaped with a heat gun.
