Series: Spirited Away
Worn to: Sakuracon 2008
Status: Active

The first time I watched Spirited Away, I just fell in love with the movie and immediately wanted to cosplay Chihiro. I had loved Miyazaki movies since I was in elementary school and always wanted to cosplay something from his epic collection. Unfortunately, although the intention to cosplay Chihiro was always looming in the back of my to-do list, I never really had a reason to finally do it. However, when my good friend Krystal mentioned the possibility of cosplaying Haku, I JUMPED at the opportunity to finally cosplay Chihiro!

This cosplay went fairly smoothly, actually. Krystal, in her generosity, sent me a box of perfect, coral fabric she had been saving for a KH2 Kairi costume. Not only that, but she drafted the pattern for our pants and tunic too! This made it very easy to construct all the pieces, however, it was quite tedious as all of the edges had to be heat-n-bonded together rather than stitched. The results were pretty neat though. The pants and sleeves are 100% functional - the pants can be gathered up and the sleeves tied back to behave the way they do in the film. The shoes were a last-minute thrift store find which were originally blue, lace-up sneakers which I painted yellow and attached a mock velcro band to match Chihiro's. They turned out much better than I expected! The only thing I'm really unhappy with is my hair - I'm used to the perfection of wigs and seeing my messy, human hair was sort of a let down. I'm also a bit unhappy with the flimsiness of the tunic and I hope to add some interfacing to the inside before wearing it again

The reaction we got for these costumes were really startling. Spirited Away cosplayers are pretty rare and I think everyone was excited to see representation of such an awesome film. I would really like to make Chihiro's other outfit in the future but, until then, I'll defintiely be wearing this costume again.

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