The Costumer

Are you an avid Halo fan? Get your Master Chief on with the Halo Costuming Wiki . Yes, while other fandoms merely have a few scattered pages about costuming tips and advice, Halo fans have a Wiki-based resource. This well-organized, oft-updated site features multiple categories, including Marine armor from Halo. Readers can use this information to create wearable costumes, game-rendered costumes, or papercraft costumes.

Instructables also offers a step-by-step how to for those interested in making Halo Costumes. Check out the video below!

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Happy Earth Day!

In respect of our planet, here are some tips to help you consider our environment (and your own health) when you are looking at purchasing or making costumes. Some of these tips will also help you save money–in this economy, why say no to that?

Reuse! There are many materials which can be reused. The staff over at Seventh Kingdom IGE (a game kind of like a LARP) has been known to utilize all sorts of foam, padding, and various ’scrap’ materials to make their costumes and atmosphere. You can reuse the following types of materials: (more…)

Germans take their lederhosen very seriously, and lederhosen love is quickly becoming a rising trend here in the United States as well.

So what’s the appeal of lederhosen, particularly in America? They’re culturally identifiable, and items that are such usually garner popularity, like the kilt. People wearing culturally identifiable folk costume pieces are often considered approachable and knowledgeable about their garments.

My friend Stef is a Polish-American college student with a great interest in other cultures. She’s fallen in love with the German language–lederhosen and all. Traditionally worn in plain fashion by young boys and in more decorated fashion by Bavarian men (complete with embroidery), lederhosen are now part of a more international fashion statement, being not-so-subtly incorporated into male and female garments at fashion shows for attention.

Culturally, it seems, Americans tend to take ‘costuming’ in a very Halloween sense, at least according to some moustache and beard champions who compete internationally. Men competing from Germany, they say, show up in traditional folk costumes, such as painstakingly-embroidered lederhosen. (more…)