Fifth Element:
Who: LeeLoo Dallas, Korbin Dallas, Diva Plavalaguna (Guest starring Zorg & two Flight Attendants)
When: LeeLoo and Korbin are post battles and the Diva before she’s dead (spoiler alert?)
Who’s: Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element
This is the costume set that started it all! Over the years we’ve upgrade (and lost) pieces, made others join in at last minute, and have won a couple of Halloween costume contests with this group. We’ve all watched the movie hundreds of times over, and quote it incessantly in and out of costume. It’s important to note that these costumes are iconic. Jean-Paul Gaultier produced and designed over 950 costumes for this film. Each piece is inspiring and memorable, and we do our best to replicate within our means.
Fun Facts, we have a rotating cast of flight attendants, and we’re still on the hunt for our elusive Ruby Rod, and perhaps one day we’ll let the more shy cast member finally dress up as the Priest or David. But our theory is what’s the point of replicating Gaultier if you can’t be the craziest?
LeeLoo Dallas, played by Mrs Spiderman (me), was a pretty straightforward costume. Until you started debating on whether to wear the Orange Suspenders outfit versus the Band-Aids outfit. When it was realized that death would be imminent by putting me in the Band-Aids costume, the team focused on making the Orange Suspenders. In the film, the actual suspenders look to be made of some pliable plastic or rubber compound. For comfort’s sake, ours are made out of polar fleece. Bright orange polar fleece cut into shape with holes inside to mimic the look. The pants were old dance pants that were spray painted silver. The piping was originally sewed on, but then it was glued on to reinforce. The top was an old ribbed tshirt that was stitched up to be the fitted midriff. Here’s where the outfit gets more interesting... The wig. In order to get a ‘battled’ look, the wig was tousled and at the top there are individual dreads created. The best thing about this wig is that the more it travels, the better it turns out. There’s no accessories other than the multipass, and some times, if they are available, orange eyelashes are worn with the whole set. Makeup is kept to a minimal, but sometimes black eyeliner is used around the eyes, and smudged around the face to appear as grease and dirt. Funny fact, the better picture of the wig is below, because above, I completely lost the wig days before leaving for Norwescon 34, so the above wig was a last minute pick up!
So there’s the original (also last see in the image!), and there are the ones that have followed it. I have lost about 4 multipasses to date. I've also forgotten to pack it when traveling, and forgotten to bring it along when going out. The first and ultimate multipass was a Ducktape coin purse with a zoomed in shot of Leeloos full multipass information. This was awesome because it carried around costume id and real id (and money!). However, it is lost in the abyss and resulted in a zoomed in shot of the multipass in an empty cd jewel case. The benefit of this one is it shows up better on pictures, but it’s not as cool as the original.I actually found one of the old Multipasses in a drawer while I was organizing my house a few weeks back... I'm not sure how it got there in the first place..
The Diva
This one was a challenge – how were we going to recreate a 7 foot tall blue tentacled alien opera star?!?!? The basis of this costume was a skirted version of a hooded Zentai body suit (covering everything but the face), which we ordered off of eBay. Because this fetish-wear came with the attached leggings, we were able to remove this excess fabric for use in creating the headpiece and tentacles so that there would be an exact match and the overall look would be uniform. The skirt was lengthened using black spandex fabric in a circle-cut to create the “mermaid” style hem. The two fabric colors of black and blue were then blended using black spray-paint. This also added a bit of length to hide the 6” platform heals that normally 5’5” Dejathoris wore to try and create some of the Diva’s height. This illusion was aided by making the headpiece about 2 feet tall, which was accomplished by stretching a tapered tube of the spandex fabric over a standard bike helmet, then filled out with pillow stuffing. To make the super-long fingers, the tips on the built-in gloves were stretched and pulled, then false nails were glued onto the ends. The crown, back-piece, gauntlets, collar and belt were all cut from vinyl and attached with Velcro. There was no pattern for these, just a cut and fit approach that took a lot of trying on, taking off, adjusting and trying on again.
For the face-paint we used an old body-makeup trick that might not be the best recommendation for every-day wear, but has proven very successful and cost-effective for us many times in the past: Colored hairspray (the kind you find at the dollar stores around Halloween). An even spray of blue, sealed with Graftobian Makeup Setting Spray™ created a uniform skin tone that matched the spandex. Black eyeliner finished the look by highlighting brows, lips and the eyelids.
Unfortunately, Dejathoris can’t carry a tune in the bucket – so a full on Diva performance in this costume is out of the question – but it is surprisingly comfortable and she has been know to break into the “Diva Dance” on more than one occasion!
The funniest thing about this costume is that when Guavious is standing by himself people have thought or asked if he was NUMEROUS Bruce Willis characters... Think about it, how many times has Bruce Willis been in a ripped tux with blood all over it... Let alone the fact that we coat Guavious with blue blood as well to create some continuity with LeeLoo. Something we noticed was an important part of the look was the hair. We either dye Guavious’ hair blond(er), or let him hang out in the sun for long periods of time to bleach it. We also make sure to keep it pretty short. When it’s longer, you lose the aesthetic and the look actually falls apart a little (attention to detail and all that!). This is another simple costume as over the years we’ve misplaced dozens of white tux shirts and had to run to Value Village to get a new one to destroy. The set is simple though, white ripped tux shirt, black pants, black suspenders, red blood paint, and blue dye. Take your time layering the red and blue wounds.
Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg is an iconic villain with an incredible sense of style! Since Zorg’s most distinguishing feature is his unique hair piece, we knew that had to be our starting point. We began with a Marilyn Manson wig, which had the right blackness in terms of hair color and the half-shaved look we needed. A little styling and the shaggy side of the wig was turned into a slick bob. The ‘bald’ side of the wig was transformed from white to beige using Revlon Color Stay foundation, and then covered in Saran wrap to get the look of Zorg’s plastic headpiece. When sewing the shiny metallic shirt, craft foam was used to reinforce an oversized collar that would stand up around the ears. Simple suiting fabric with a bold pinstripe formed the basis of his knee length over-vest. Final touches included adding black slacks, and one fantastic Nerf blaster as a stand-in for the infamous ZF-1.
Zorg was used during a Halloween costume ball and once again the following year in Las Vegas. My favorite picture of Zorg also happens to have me photo bombing him. I think I was trying to be stealthy Leeloo at the time...At the end of the evening on our Vegas Halloween excursion, our Zorg removed his headpiece and vest, turned down the oversized collar on his shiny shirt and then added heavy gold rimmed sunglasses…. And volia! Instant Elvis costume!!!
Flight Attendants
Over the years we have had a couple of different flight attendants join our group – lucky, this is a fairly easy costume to throw together as it’s the accessories and makeup that really rock this look:
Step 1: Find a tight, short, blue dress.
Step 2: Cut strategic key holes around cleavage and back into dress fabric.
Step 3: Cut hat, collar and boot covers out of blue craft foam, assemble and add “wings” cut from white craft foam using glue gun.
Step 4: Add a blonde bob wig and BLUE, BLUE, BLUE eyeshadow.
Step 5: Get dressed and board the shuttle for Folston Paradise!
You can check out more of our pictures on our Flickr page here. We'll try to keep it up to date as possible!
You can check out more of our pictures on our Flickr page here. We'll try to keep it up to date as possible!
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