Construction Details:

There are 3 kimonos, all basically patterned the same. And I suppose calling them kimonos is a bit of a stretch considering that the "skirt" portion doesn't resemble a proper kimono at all. Anyways, the innermost kimono is made of one layer of muslin. The collar is over 100 little parallelogram pieces sewn together because I couldn't find a striped fabric in the right colors. The middle kimono is made from a lovely mystery shimmery purple fabric (yay random Fashion District finds!) and trimmed in a wide beige lace.
The outermost kimono is dull midweight satin lined in taffeta lining. The gold applique was carefully cut out of an embossed lame and initially attached with basting spray because Heat n Bond would have destroyed the embossing. Once attached I added the two lines of satin stitching. The collar is very ornate, with three lines of piping and gold rickrack added to the embossed lame. This kimono was finished by adding the strange petals at the hem.

The obi is made from the same fabric as the middle kimono, and the applique was done with the same method as the kimono. I just wish the basting spray would have adhered to this fabric as well as it did on the kimono fabric! FUN FACT: I used over 1200 yards of gold thread creating the applique for this costume!

The bangles were made from gold stretch lame glued over bracelets I found at Wal-Mart, with all the accents glued on afterwards. I will be remaking them as all the extra fabric and accessories glued around the bracelet made them impossible to get off my wrists. Good thing I only used hot glue, huh?

Sora is an otherworldly-looking character so I used Kryolan TV Paint Stick in a very light shade to make myself paler. Between that, the white eyebrows and the enormous lashes I used, I looked quite unlike myself once I was in costume!

Personal Thoughts:

Escaflowne has been my favorite anime for over a decade...I'm super happy to have finally cosplayed from it! Sora needs a few tweaks (the white eyebrows photograph a LOT lighter than they look in person and it makes me look a bit bizarre) but I'm overall very pleased with how it turned out. And cosplaying with 4 of my favorite people was also awesome!

Styling Notes

Just had to cut the bangs!

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