_________Original Star Trek Dresses
_________Costume Stats
Character Name: --
_________Reference
Series: Star Trek
Specifics: dresses inspired by the original series and designed by me
Cost: $60 for all three
Time: ~27 hours for all three
Started: July 2009
Completed: July 2009
Debuted: Polaris 2009
_________Information
I've been a huge Star Trek geek since I was in elementary school, and I've always wanted to make Star Trek uniforms. The release of Star Trek XI inspired me to re-watch the original series. I was struck by the desire to make Star Trek costumes for myself and for my cosplay partners in crime: Sakura and Becky.
_________In Progress
I asked them whether they'd prefer the velour outfits from the original series or original dresses I made up. They opted for the original dresses. We decided it would be fun to wear them at a sci-fi convention called Polaris, which gave me just about a week to complete all three dresses.
The pattern for the dresses is one I made earlier in the summer as a prototype for a stylized version of the Paper Bag Princess. Since Becky, Sakura and I are roughly the same size, I didn't have to alter the pattern too much for them. A big thanks to them for letting me invade their homes for fittings!
The dresses were made of twill because I had a lot of extra twill lying around and because it's easy to work with. If I could change anything about these dresses now, it would be the fabric choice. I would have gone for something more flexible that doesn't wrinkle as easily.
The defining feature of the dresses are the overlapping straps on the right-hand side. All the straps were hand-sewed to hide the stitching.
I made myself a red dress (ops/engineering), I made Sakura a blue dress (sciences), and I made Becky a gold dress (which made her our commanding officer XD).
We bought the black tights and all three of us already owned matching lace-up black boots. The wigs were up to us. I borrowed one of Becky's white wigs when I wore the costume to Polaris.
As for the patches... Becky and I ordered Star Trek patches online, but they didn't arrive in time for Polaris. The Thursday night before the convention, I glued carefully cut layers of bristle board together to make us patches. I painted them the following day while watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which remains one of the most yawn-inducing movies of all time and thus perfect for painting in front of). For something I threw together last minute, I love the way our patches came out! If I had known I had this skill, I wouldn't have bothered with eBay!
_________Misc
These costumes are really fun and easy to wear, and they make the Star Trek geek inside me very happy. It was great to cosplay with Sakura and Becky again! Props to them for putting up with me and my crazy plans!
_________Images
Our dresses were a huge hit at Polaris -- especially when all three of us were together. And I liked that I got to use my Star Trek toys are accessories!
Guy at Polaris: What version of the Star Trek uniforms are you wearing?
Pan: Uh, the one I made up last week...? :D?
Polaris 2009
