Wonder Woman - Halloween 2011

Wonder Woman
Who: Wonder Woman (Mrs. Spiderman)
What: DC Comics Superhero (1941 – Present)

Alright people, we have two weeks to dress Mrs Spiderman as Wonder Woman for Halloween 2011... All because on the hunt for another costume piece we found Wonder Woman boots at a thrift store for $10... Yes, this is one of the only instances where we may reference price because they were $10 freaking dollars... WOOT WOOT! Although as you can see the costume turned out awesome, it took a lot of walking away... And that’s a very important piece of costuming advice... Sometimes you have to just walk away... If you’re frustrated, that’s going to show in your work, and then you’re stuck with something that looks like you were messy and unorganized. Even if that is the look you’re going for, you’re going to be stuck with something you’re not satisfied with...

So after we found the boots we headed straight to Fabricland and found everything but blue satin with gold stars (we found red satin with gold stars, purple cotton with yellow stars, seriously people!). However, Dejathoris was up in Red Deer meeting up with a friend and had some time to kill... Lo and behold, first stop Fabricland and bam! Blue satin with Gold Stars! On top of that, she found some gold rope for the “Lasso of Truth”. We then spent a few days searching the internet and clearance outlets for something that could pass as the red corset top. Much to our avail, red is apparently not available at a sale price in early Fall... However, at the Little Shop of Pleasures Dejathoris found a clearance Betty Boop costume which was made up of a red sparkly dress (using that term loosely) and a black wig that we had other plans for.

So you would think a simple tube dress would be fairly easy to finagle into a top, right? Nope. The dress was found at an exotic shop, right? So you would also assume that it was meant to fit an adult, but it would in fact not. We then quickly added a long zipper down the side to try and “make it work”... However, the dress itself when worn for over twenty minutes started to irritate and create red marks all over... Still trying to “make it work” we moved on to the logo. While trying to adhere strips gold vinyl to the dress, the stretchiness of the tube created a blob affect, rather than the superior logo in the final result. What happened here? We walked away...

Top number two started out as a faux corset with brown lace material over top of it... The plan was to take off the lace, adhere the logo, and add lacing to the back because the top was still too darn small! However, the top was also stretchy, so the same problem as the sparkle Betty Boop top! Will we ever win??? At this point, the countdown is less than 4 days away....

During this break we did however finish the Tiara & Bracelets. Whilst at Fabricland we picked up some “letterman” style numbers that happened to have a red star in them. That red star was ironed on to a tiara shaped piece of gold vinyl & elastic similar to a headband. The idea was to pull all of Mrs Spiderman’s hair above the elastic to hide it and help facilitate the high volume hair that Lynda Carter made so iconic. A helpful tip here is to make sure that the elastic, or anything around your head is never too tight... There’s the temptation to make things tight in your costumes so that you have the assurance that they won’t fall apart, but when things are around your face or head, if they are too tight, they’re just going to give you headaches. Once on, we used some bobby pins to pull the tiara elastic up a little higher so that it was not pressing on the ears or temples.

The Bracelets were the easiest to throw together. Some tapered squares of Gold Vinyl were cut and seamed while some Velcro stickers were put on the corners to hold everything together! Easy peasy!
One of the pieces we’re most proud of is the Logo. Since we’d decided to do more of a 40’s style Wonder Woman (with a skirt rather than hot pants/swimsuit style) we had our pick of logos. The Eagle is iconic and the stylized “W” is as well... But if you go back, you can find a stylized “W” that has a shape of an Eagle on the top. Perfect! We printed this off on regular paper, taped it onto the gold Vinyl, and then cut it out as if it were a fabric pattern. This was then glued on to some adhesive backed felt. So the front is the felt and the back has an adhesive to stick onto the top fabric!

Saturday morning, the party starts at 9... Everyone’s showing up at 7.... We still have no finished Wonder Woman. We realize that there is enough material from the cape to make a top from scratch, and so that’s where we go. Grabbing an old corset-style top pattern from Dejathoris’ pattern archives, we quickly cut out the material and head to the sewing machine. Earlier purchased was some black grommet tape to facilitate the lacing to ensure that the top stayed on. Although, once the Logo was put on, the top started to slide down. It had to be safety pinned onto bra straps to hold itself up! On another day, we’ll sew some loops onto it to string the bra straps through. Maybe when we’re not so crunched for time!

The skirt was purposefully cut way to long so that we could see where exactly it would fit with the top and the boots. It’s good to gauge “middle pieces” or essentially the piece where you have the most leeway. For instance, the boots were purchased first, the top was the most hassle to get right, so the skirt was the most adaptable piece of the ensemble. In order to get the correct look, all other pieces needed to be done in order to be sure about the length of the skirt, the flare of the skirt, and the look all together. Once pinned at the right length and sewn, all that was left was the cape.

A lot of the imagery, and the prepackaged costumes for some reason have Wonder Woman in a short waist high cape. However, if you look at Lynda Carter’s photographs, there are many with the long flowing two sided cape. Mind you, we did not have the time to make a two sided eagle influenced cape, BUT we did go with a long red satin to make ours. Gauged with the boots on we measured the material. Once hemmed, we added an adjustable tie like a drawstring so that we could create the rushed look at the shoulders. The best thing about this cape, which couldn’t be caught on camera (yet) is how it flows when you walk!

Hair and Makeup were pretty straight forward... As we’ve alluded to, we wanted big wavy hair, which involved steam curlers and a lot of back combing. The essence you want here is a lot of “pouf” at the top of the head, and a lot of wave around the face. Hairspray is a must and you must be very, very liberal! Makeup was mostly gold toned eye shadows with a very thick layer of black eyeliner. Black and gold eyelashes were added to complete the look! A true red lipstick was also used to connect the whole look. The red, MAC Pro Longwear Lipcolour in Lasting Lust which actually matched the satin complimented the whole outfit. And finally, for fun of course, gold body glitter (NIX) was applied liberally.

So all in all, not bad for an afternoon of rushed costuming spawned by the Greatest Deal of All Time ™. We will definitely be taking this costume to future venues and perhaps we may even get it judged!