Alice and Kazumi

(Collaboration with Minty Melody)

Series: Milky Holmes

First worn: Anime CTX 2017 – Austin, TX
Awards won: Best in Show, Anime CTX 2017 – Austin, TX

These two outfits, from the third season of Milky Holmes (Futari wa Milky Holmes), was a year in the making.  Minty Melody wore the Alice outfit, while I wore the Kazumi outfit.  In the series, Alice and Kazumi accidentally discover that by using their powers together, the effect was amplified a thousand-fold, which they used to solve cases.  In a way, these two costumes worked the same way, as the construction played to our individual strengths (namely, my sewing abilities and her prop making abilities).

The main difficulties with our outfits on the sewing side were the fact that I had to do a fairly substantial full bust adjustment on the Alice outfit (+3″ from a D-cup bodice pattern), and the check pattern was actually curved, not perpendicular.  Doing the FBA with a princess seam bodice increased the difficulty of the outfit itself.  The check pattern being curved prevented me from buying check patterned fabric; instead, I decided to machine embroider the entire hem band, and then finish it off with bias tape for the yellow border.

The main material used to make the outfits was cotton sateen.  Anything that was not white or black was custom dyed.

The props were made by Minty Melody for her contribution to the outfits.  I personally am not clear how exactly she made them, as props of that size and the materials that she used are out of my scope of knowledge.  I would like to mention that without her props, these outfits would not be possible.