The pants were simple — cut the seam, serge the purple up the side and then attach the ties. The ties are made from serged purple “leaves” tied in a knot and sewn with a few hand stitches to the top of the purple stripe just below the waist band. I intended this so I could wear the pants without wearing the skirt as well as with the skirt and also to wear with street clothes to make them just a little more funky. I have this long standing fantasy of every outfit I wear (except gym clothes and lingerie) is some sort of funky cool costume. So gradually I’ve been upcycling the pants.

I like the tie on the pants a lot with all the “leaves” hanging in a cluster — it’s short enough to work with fire. I’m particularly happy with the vintage broach I attached onto the top to give it a little extra pizazz. The costume worked well — I used it for a few gigs and the photo shoot featured in The City Exposed piece as well. it was well worth it, as a simple costume that took under 5 hours to throw together.

One of the things I liked about this dress which was only $25, was that it had a lot of fabric that was fire safe as well as the gradient in the colors.

I combined it with a dupioni silk that matched almost perfectly and then I added appliques of a brocade silk in white on top of the dress part as well as the leg cuffs and arms cuffs. Though I don’t have a photo of just the dress without the skirt, I actually had originally intended that to be the look. However, as art will be, I decided that the dress was a little too short and then ended up adding the patch work top and skirt. I’m glad I did because, ultimately, I think they look better. The top is made of more silk than the dress itself, with just those three patches in the front under the breast. The skirt is half and half.

The other thing that had the costume work better without the dress is that I sewed on some vintage bracelets on top of the white applique on the dress, leg cuffs and arm cuffs. Sadly, on the dress, the bracelets broke the first time I wore it, which, in and of itself would not be a problem if I had sewed down every link on the bracelets, which I did not. You can see the bracelets here in some close ups of the leg cuffs and arm bands.

The costume is designed to be worn in layers over a black shirt and pair of yoga pants for easy costume changes in public as well as less wear and tear on the outfit, as it doesn’t need to be washed as frequently and can simply be used for performance and taken off since all the sweat is on the bottom layer. In addition, having had many challenges over the years with costume malfunctions (especially breasts that just seem to have a mind of their own and want to be exposed to the cool night air), I have taken to wearing a bottom layer that I’m confident won’t spill out any of the good and will hold my body in the ways I want it to be held for fire. Bras simply have never worked that well for me, so shelf tanks are my thing.

The idea was to create something that had contrast and would show up better in the fire than black alone might — the cactus color (lighter green) is going to be especially effective at that.

For my body type, working with something tighter under the bust is often best with flowing fabric that is not fitted over the hips, stomach and butt. In this photo shoot, I’m not wearing the arm fringe. These are pieces that look like the knee fringe only they go above the elbow. (I hadn’t put the elastic in yet for this photo shoot.) Photos are taken at Samovar in the Castro by Addrianna.

The rosette in the bust area was inspired by my days at the Renaissance Fairs over a decade ago when I did bodice and costume fittings. Part of the process was to make rosette’s out of these long pieces of gauze cotton, so I learned that back then and was happy to apply it to this costume. I did not use a pattern and this was really the first thing I did with this serger, though I had some experience with Devin’s serger for the gauntlets I made while I was in Chicago. I’m certain that having a dress form would make this whole costume creation process much easier — doing the back of a shirt is really challenging when you can’t see what’s going on.