Personal Essay: the steps to create my costume

by SOPHIA TOMPKINS

Online Editor

Halloween is my favorite time of year, not for the candy or the scares, but because Halloween means Halloween costumes. Deciding on what I’m going to wear has always been something I look forward to every year. This year, Halloween gave me the chance to utilize the newly developed costume design skills I’ve obtained during my time in UMW Theatre’s costume shop.

I first started working with costumes in middle school, where I helped design and create garments for my school and local community theatre. In my high school theatre department, I was the chair of the costume crew, and started noticing the intricacies of the clothing in every production I watched. 

When I got to UMW, I assisted in making costumes for the shows produced in Klein Theatre and took the Costume Design class. This class helped me learn the techniques to customize my designs so it looked exactly like what I wanted. Thus began my love for creating elaborate Halloween costumes. 

When I watched the TV show “Shadow and Bone,” I was mesmerized by the clothing design. The elegance and attention to detail in the show’s costume design enhanced the show’s quality and look. So, when it came to deciding on what to wear this weekend, I knew I wanted to do something from the show.  

I landed on character Alina Starkov’s black Kefta, a special type of coat, worn during the winter fete, a fancy ball that takes place in the books. 

The costume is a long, silky black coat that falls to the floor and is covered in gold embroidery and small black beads. The gold embroidery placed along the collar, going down the shirt and along the hem mimics exploding sunbursts. 

I began designing my outfit in my head and eventually decided against wearing a long black coat all day on Halloween. It feels impractical to wear a floor-length coat at work, especially because I don’t want to overheat in my costume.

When it came time to start compiling the pieces for the costume, my friend and I went thrifting together to look for a dress that would both fit physically and aesthetically. After searching and searching, I was almost ready to give up, until, at the last store of the day,  I found a black dress that had a V-neckline and an A-line skirt—exactly what I was looking for. Afterwards, we went to a craft store and got high-intensity and low-intensity gold ribbons to mimic the two different colors of embroidery used in the dress. 

At home, I borrowed my roommate’s chalk pen and got to work drawing out what the embroidery would look like. Once I had it drawn out, I started to cut the ribbon to the length and width that I needed. Then I shaped the ribbon to the chalk and glued it down using fabric glue. 

I wanted the top of the dress to look like sunbeams exploding out of the neckline line and the back mimicked the shape, even though there was no V-neckline. The Kefta I am basing my dress on had gold embroidery running down the edges of the coat. 

To translate this to my dress, I drew a chalk line down the center of the dress and put ribbon bursting out from that line. For the hem line, I drew out the suns across the hem and glued the ribbon down. I did the same for the back of the dress. 

Creating this costume took a bit over a week. I started working on the costume last Sunday and worked on it on and off until Monday. 

The biggest challenge for me was not being able to work on it for long stretches of time. The texture of the glue and the glitter on the ribbon would start to bother me after working on the costume for a while. I had to stop working on it for a while so I didn’t go crazy. 

In order to avoid losing momentum with the costume, I split the costume into four sections: front top, back top, front skirt and back skirt. I worked on one section at a time, so it prevented the textures of the materials from bothering me too much. Once I finished gluing everything down, I let it dry and it was ready to wear.