Kureha and Houmei - Shining Wind

Photographer: Lionel Lum
Kureha: me
Houmei: Pixie Kitty

This costume was made along with for the AUSA 2011 Masquerade and we won Best Overall Craftsmanship!

Kureha has such a pretty design, although fairly simple. I wanted to use as many natural fabrics as possible, since in the show she gets the outfit in a medieval nation in an alternate universe. I was very pleased with how everything came together so nicely!

Kureha's sleeves, skirt panel, and top are made from a tan polished cotton that I dyed orange. The sleeves feature hand made brown bias tape trim and arm ties, and I sprayed an orange gradient onto the bottom using Floral Spray. The spiked edges are interfaced for shape. The skirt panel features a line of topstitching per Kureha's reference art, and it attached onto the brown cotton hakama over skirt, which was free patterned and folded by hand. The top has a white flower made of Casa satin that is satin stitched onto the right side.

The obi and bow are made from a buttercream yellow sateen. Both are interfaced for shape. The bow is separate and sets into the obi via a wire loop. The bow tails feature white Casa satin designs satin stitched onto the bottom. The main dress is made from white Casa satin. The top portion is fully lined and boned and features scalloped edging on the upper back, with interfacing and topstitching for support. The dress skirt has a free flowing lining slip, and the satin has scalloped edges that are interfaced and satin stitched for shape and stability.

The boot covers are white Casa satin that have elastic at the bottom to make the weird poof that Kureha's boots have, and the top ties on via hand made brown cotton bias tape. I already owned the white boots. The collar is made from white Casa satin, brown cotton, and orange dyed polished cotton, fully lined and topstitched, and closes via snap. The button on the front is a button with a brad head glued in, both painted.

I re-covered a headband in white twill, interfaced for stiffness. The wig started as a beautiful light blonde and was then sharpie dyed to the perfect brown sugar color! I'm really proud of that color!

This was such a fun skit and I'm so glad we won something for our costumes! We put a lot of months of work into the whole thing and tried to come up with something very unique, which is why we went with dubstep and fan dancing! For anyone interested, the song we used is "Heartbreak (Bare Noize Remix)" by M'Black and was a collaborative choice between us and our husbands

You can see pictures of Pixie Kitty's Houmei here: