Pluto’s Post-Mortem

photo by Eleventh Photography

Friends, photographers and Cosplay Cats, we are gathered here today to pay our respects to the Trans Neptunian Object named Pluto.

Pluto Gif

She ded. I cry erytiem.

Actually, not really. But science is really fuckin’ cool and sometime soon some of the metal things we humans shot into space will go by and we can get a better idea of what the formerly-known-as-a-planet, Pluto looks like.

But I’m actually gonna break down my costume as pluto for people today, what I did, how I did it, what problems I ran into, and what I still need to do.

The Good

We Ded. (photo by Octography)

(Get it? Because… because planets are round… like balls. and they’re in space. <.<)


He gets it.

 The Corset

Cat and Corset

Hi mom. ilu mom. I sits on your thing, mom. Pets?

Awww yiiiiiss. This was my first for-real corset. Like, with pattern drafting coutil, steel boning, fashion layers and everything. The corset above, which Cosplay Cat is modeling on, was made with plastic giant zipties, and no fashion layer, and from a pattern.

Needless to say, I was kind of intimidated about making Pluto’s custom shaped thing. Especially since my ribs flare out and make every other corset I’ve worn super uncomfortable.

The Sleeves

OMFG. Okay. When Shushu does something it looks marvelous and effortless. IT IS NOT. But godDAMN I am proud of these things. I used the Firefly path tutorial, like the rest of my group, but wanted to make those teardrop shapes that Shushu did.

So I free-handed the pattern, muslin’d it, then adjusted accordingly. The tricky part was sewing on the main part of the sleeve onto the slashed piece.

The Skirts

I’ve never really made skirts like this before, what with the drapeys and the weird ass hips shapes. So I basically put the panniers on my form, and then draped a rectangle around them to get the right shape.

Considering that, and that the drape-y bits were a little scary to do, (Satin shows all your mistakes forever), I’m really happy with the way they turned out. The satin took forever to hem, but in the end I’m really happy with how neat a job I did.

The Bad

The Panniers


Version 1 of the panniers was from the Mantua Maker pattern that I’d purchased. However, after doing some work on them, and looking at the art, then looking at the skirt fabrics, I realised that a better option would be the hip-pocket style found at this pannier-along. So I ditched v1.0


Made with the pannier-along that I linked above, these turned out pretty well, until I started putting fabric on them. THEN THEY FOLDED LIKE …LIKE… LIKE SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T HANDLE INTERROGATIONS WELL.


So I whined to Shushu that they were foldy and collapse-y, and she was like “just add more boning”. Which, for once, was the correct advice.


I folded the extra long fabric parts, and sewed them into channels. Then added more bones.

It worked… until Sunday. The heat of wearing the panniers on my body had caused the plastic bones to relax, and curl into each other, meaning that they weren’t sitting well against my hips, and required constant re-adjusting before photos, after walking, and sitting.


Friday and most of Sunday, I was wearing my flat boots because of the following thing: I played a lot of soccer as a younger lady. I have resultant soccer injuries. 5 sprains on one ankle, and a chipped bone on the other. For some reason, after flying, my ankles and feet decide to get angry and achey. So Friday, while I was all ready, and putting on my boots (in a corset, but hey, I’m bendy enough to manage) the wonderful boots that I got wouldn’t zip up.

I managed to get it done, but within the two minutes of standing, knew that I couldn’t manage a whole day in the heels. So I swapped out for my civvie boots that just happened to be near-knee height, and black.

DAY SAVED. Luckily, my feet were happier by Sunday, so for my shoot with LexaONE photography, I was able to put the wonderful awesome boots on.

And lo, Calamity was happy.

The Fixes


Pretty simple: Replace plastic bones with hoop steel. BAM. Done.


I want to add some pick-ups to the back of my draped skirts, and add snaps to the black pleated skirt so I don’t have to raid Melting Mirror’s stash of safety pins. Also, proper waistbands.

The Front Swag also needs to be fixed, and it unfortunately started drooping during sunday.


While most of the bows are fine, I do want to tack down the ‘wings’ of the hip bows, as they tend to fold in when I walk into stuff. Which happens a lot. Because I gots big hips with them panniers. *does the twist, takes out the Gazebo*

I’m also missing a couple small bows at the collar and the corners of the front swag.


Because these were attached by hand to the bolero, I need to sew them down properly. Before that though, I’ll probably take them off, and then serge all the seams and add some light interfacing to the white parts of the pouf. Then, dye the slashy-poufs so that they aren’t ‘faint grey’ but actually that faded red they were supposed to be. Unfortunately, when I layered the white chiffon over the red taffeta, it turned into light grey.

I’ll also add the bell sleeve part, and fix the gloves.

Then, the Garnet rod.

Funny how ‘finished’ costumes aren’t really ever ‘finished’…

xox Calamity