mom wants to have a dinner tomorrow that we all get dressed up for since we’re all here quarantining together
she did not specify that we were supposed to dress formally AND mad max: road warrior was on today so i am throwing together a Post-Apocalyptic Look for the dinner for the irony and also because i am. a maniac.
i have ripped the lining out of this once-pretty Lord + Taylor suede coat:
don’t worry too much–i got it super cheap on ebay years ago and had already fucked it up a little for larping (replaced the…uhhh original? they probably don’t call ‘em OEM parts on clothing lol….buttons with elvish looking clasps)
so i ripped out the lining, which is also really promising for easy weathering and quickly adding a fuck ton of texture to the coat:
i am now trying to figure out what effect bleaching suede will have on the color of the coat.
website after website is telling me how to go about it if i don’t want to damage the suede or discolor it. however, i want to damage the SHIT out of this coat. i want someone to look at this coat and not quite be sure what the fuck color it originally was.
needs a lot of love but like…that’s the beginning of a mask!!!
(if you’re wondering about the guy fawkes mask, i knew that it was a little big on my face but generally the right shape to make a human-face-ish impression on the back of the mask. if you’ve ever tried casting full face prosthetic makeup, you know about the necessity of having both a positive and negative mold to make sure it actually fits onto a face–same principle here!)
so now i’m blasting it with a hair dryer until i’m satisfied that it’s dry-ish, then a whooooole lot of sanding.
ALSO dinner is actually tomorrow because no one felt like dress up dinner today lol
hood is mostly stitched. there are some elements i’m not satisfied with yet but it’s pretty close to done. not sure if i’m going to keep the “eyes in the back of your head” embroidery joke in there or not though (see the third picture). it IS funny in a grim way and i suspect that gallows humor is the only kind of humor that would survive long in a world like that but i don’t know if it fits the aesthetic really. we’ll see.
found some funky square chain and a few strings of eucalyptus seeds that i wasn’t sure what to do with and will be incorporating those (along with a piece of tire i found while walking a few days ago) into the costume somehow
looks like those tabi boots i bought in high school because i wanted to be as cool as my sister by having An Interest In Japan will also come in handy
and it’s mask painting time!! i’ve been looking forward to this for DAYS this is my favorite part of the PROJECT
OK so after a hiatus of uhhh ??? several months i am working on this again
i have added mesh onto the eyeholes of the mask and may paint them black. we shall see. also E6000 may be horrifically toxic but it is also the best glue ever
i think once i have the mesh secured and painted (and once i make sure there’s nothing on the inside that’s going to poke my face), all that will be left on the mask and hood is weathering, which is my favorite thing
found a REALLY nice shredded tire on the side of the road that i’m going to use for “armor”
may test out using my dremel to “age” the fabric elements of the costume? i’ve seen some videos of people doing that and it seems to work well and go fast
gotta spice up the plain old tabi boots i have
must add T R I N K E T S
Tags:
#cosplay ideas for when I go to a con wearing a respirator to prevent con crud #(I don’t think I would enjoy the process enough to put this much work into it) #(but I’m glad OP is having fun and the inspiration might still help me with something lower-effort) #(…honestly I bet my utility belt and steel-water-bottle-with-shoulder-strap-pouch and #maybe also the hiking boots would go pretty well with the Aesthetic too) #(…god I just took another look at the way that coat turned out and was vividly reminded of #the camo-pattern hat I keep strapped to my utility belt when not in use) #(I really don’t need that many tweaks to my normal outfit‚ do I) #clothing #cosplay #illness mention #long post
There’s a particular aesthetic that I associate with radical self-expression. It’s like, sparkly and glitter-on-face-y and colorful and impractical and frankly it makes me a little uncomfortable but whatever, that’s on me.
The thing I’m not sure about is, how suspicious should I be of just that first sentence? Like you’d think radical self-expression would be diverse enough not to have an associated aesthetic. But that’s not necessarily true, there’s all sorts of ways it could do, and anyway I might be wrong to associate it with radical self-expression at all.
But still, I can’t help but suspect that at least some of the time, people who claim to be going for radical self-expression are actually just trying to look like the sort of person whose radical self-expression makes them look like the sort of person who fits in here.
Which, when I put it in words, yes, obviously that happens. I just don’t know how much.
I do think that shininess, colorfulness, and impracticality are all things you should expect from humans focusing more on doing stuff-they-want with dress, even if these specific people look weirdly close to each other.
When you look at examples in nature of entities showing off to entities with humanlike vision, shininess and colorfulness play a big role, and the same is true in human fashion unless you’re countersignaling. And practicality is a huge constraint on dress. People looking for dress fulfilling specific artistic criteria that aren’t about practicality are almost never going to land on something more practical than average.
What incarnation-issues said. But also, from my perspective, when I wear sparkly colorful impractical clothing, it’s not about radical self-expression. It’s about colors and sparkles as ends in themselves. Trying to be different from everyone else is like running up the down escalator, so I don’t try to do it anymore. I’m a weirdo like all the other weirdos, but the way I am, aesthetically and otherwise, is a good way to be no matter how many people are doing it. I’m just another normal anomaly.
I acknowledge that the above is true for many people, but I personally associate wearing shiny/colourful/impractical/showy clothing with *coercion*. “Oh come *on*, we’re going somewhere *fancy*, you have to look *nice*!”
Sometimes radical self-expression is utility belts and hiking boots and wearing the same few Lands’ End outfits all the time.
(for people unaware, Lands’ End is a clothing store that sells very plain and practical and comfy clothes [link]: I highly recommend them)
Tags:
#clothing #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #reply via reblog
is there like. Theory. about the definition of the self through the objects we surround ourselves with? i feel so much more like Myself ever since i got my shirt again and i am curious what the philosophy side of tumblr has to say about it
While I do get the part-of-me feeling most strongly with computers, I occasionally get it with other stuff too. I’m not sure how much of it is just an autism not-liking-change thing, but there definitely does seem to also be an aspect of “affirming my identity as the sort of person who would have X”.
(I’m sure that’s the holy grail of marketing, but I think it very much *can* be both natural and healthy. I absolutely endorse my desire to be the sort of person who would have a utility belt.)
Clothing can have additional aspects: I think the feeling I get from wearing my Girl Guide jacket primarily operates through some of the same mechanisms as weighted blankets, feeling more comfortable and confident when well-covered.
Tags:
#philosophy #reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #clothing #transhumanism #autism
…now that you mention it, that actually sounds like a pretty excellent way to get around the problem where a lot of otherwise-excellent skirts lack pockets and are thus impractical for me to go outside in. (At least insofar as the belt is light enough to not be uncomfortable the way backpacks are.)
Do you have any advice on how to get started trying out utility belts? It hadn’t occurred to me until this post that they might be a thing worth looking into, so I don’t have a good sense of what the market for them looks like or of any particular pitfalls I’d need to avoid.
The first thing you’ll need is terminology: they aren’t normally called “utility belts” because I guess that’s too nerdy or something. The main keywords you’re looking for are “belly bag” or “fanny pack”, though they are also occasionally called “belt bags” or “waist bags”.
(I usually call mine a belly bag in day-to-day conversations, though I sometimes call it a utility belt if I’m emphasising the preparedness aspect.)
I’ve had my current one for ages, but I *think* I got it in the camping section at Walmart. It looks roughly like this [link], though mine has only one side-release buckle (the lefthand one). Eastsport seems to have discontinued those models as part of a pivot towards backpacks, but that picture still gives you an idea of the sort of thing I mean.
—
Some tips on using them:
You can use the bag as a platform, allowing more stability while carrying bulky objects.
Don’t be afraid to string other pouches onto the belt strap. Maybe don’t go *all* the way around–a pouch right in the back would be both difficult to use† and probably uncomfortable while sitting in chairs with backs–but a pouch on either side is very doable, and perhaps a couple of small things as well like a paracord bracelet or pen-fork pouch.
Speaking of which, here is a list of the stuff I had in my belt as of two years ago [link]. It’s *mostly* still accurate, and certainly remains useful for inspiration.
—
†though perhaps no worse than a backpack in that regard
Tags:
#reply via reblog #utility belts #clothing #the more you know #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers
#this but unironically #I wear a utility belt and it’s so great and y’all should join me #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #clothing #utility belts
The Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator, a British product from the 1920s, is a scroll-map navigator in the shape of a watch. It came with tiny interchangeable instructions that you scrolled manually to see which roads to take when driving.
People have been trying to invent the GPS for as long as people have been driving and I for one think that’s beautiful
i put new yellow shoelaces on my boots to show people i am Cool. I walk to my work full of old lady cashiers. “I like your shoelaces.” one of them says to me. I see my life flash before my eyes as this ancient test is presented before me
Op did you say it
did you say it op
Tags:
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #clothing
Item: Bowtie of Charging, a failed experimental charging device created by an eccentric artificer. Initially was designed to charge electrical devices by physical contact, but proved too unpredictable for large-scale manufacture, occasionally even sapping energy away to charge itself. Tie it around an electrical device and roll d100 to determine what the device’s battery percentage will be once you take the bowtie off.
If wrapped around anything else, including a character trying it on as a normal bowtie, roll d10 for every round worn.
2-10: no effect
1: d10 Lightning damage
Tags:
#””failed”” #I mean yeah it’s not *ideal* but as long as you understand its limitations that sounds very useful #clothing #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #pretty things
actually i devise an interpretation of the concept of “clothing” such that a shower curtain shielding me from any potential line of sight to another human being counts as not being naked, then impose it on the social reality by being the only mind interacting with the concept of clothing in this narrow domain and thus achieving unanimity
i.e. nakedness is a social construct, if nobody else is watching then you decide how naked you are
if someone else is watching then you have bigger problems
Tags:
#clothing #fun with loopholes #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #anon hate cw?
Brinens and Things - Tumblr Mirror 