Sith Lord
Personal Costume
August 2016
It's been a very long time in the waiting for this one...
I grew up on Star Wars. From the Age of three I was watching the movies with my dad, wishing to be Princess Leia with my Yoda puppet and always having to be the one who hung the X-wing and Tie-Fighter ornaments on the Chritmas tree. I bake my Christmas cookies to the original trilogy and went to the opening release of all the re-releases and new movies. I have 8 Boba Fett action figures and every single one of my cars always sports a Mythosaur skull decal somewhere on them.
But in all that time, I had never done a Star Wars cosplay for myself. I really just never knew what i wanted to do... Mandolorians are
are a dime a dozen, and I've never really been a Slave Leia kind of girl. But the lack of a preferred lightsaber also made choosing between the light and dark sides difficult. Finally I came across Saberforge Sabers and fell in love with their unique designs on their CNC milled aluminum saber hilts. Finally ideas began to trickle in for a Sith Lord, a Jedi Master and a Grey Jedi and I began fleshing out the characters in my mind.
I decided to start with the Sith Lord, as I had the most Ideas for her. I knew I was going to keep to shades of black and dark blues, grays and greens instead of the typical black/red theme. I also knew I wanted her to be more elegant than aggressive. More Vader, Less Maul with a bit of Ventress thrown in. I also wanted to make her a loaner, and a mystery. Dark but very misty, with no clear delineation in her allegiance. I also wanted her more in tune with the Sith Witches of Dathomir than the actual Empire, but still an 'action' fighter.
I decided then to shy away from and actual skirt, taking inspiration from Japanese hakama and making a wrap pant with an extra long belt. The open sides allow for a sexy showing of leg while the split legs alow for better movement than a skirt, while still keeping the elegant 'skirt' look in the full leg of the pants. I was also keen to keep my comfort level manageable and so chose a good quality Irish linen for the pants that would be breathable on their own in addition to having the open side.
The corset was done as a 'cover' to go over my already well fitted, steel-boned, waist training corset. This I did to save on work, and also to keep from having any lacing visible on the exterior. I wanted this to be as futuristic looking as possible, and therefor aimed to avoid
recognizable fastenings and closures. This ideal was only somewhat hindered by my inability to come up with a more unique zipper pull for the "Guardians of the Galaxy" zipper I used on the front of the corset. ((Always a work in progress)) It's layered in various types and shades of leather, with accent pieces in deep purple and dark green, and has decorative stitching in a several panels. The whole thing matches a neck corset/bolero that elongates the neck and makes a keyhole of window of the back and chest.
This was topped off with a hand made asymetical leather saber belt that rides low on the hips. I hand tooled a simple design in the accent strip of the belt, and painted it gunmetal to stand out against the black alcohol dye.
For the cloak i wanted to avoid the traditional collar with a hood and cape.
