Fan Expo Denver

Hi friends!:) I recently attended one day of Fan Expo Denver 2024 and wanted to share my experience, both of the convention and of making my cosplay!

For this event, I went as Stocking Anarchy from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. If I remember correctly, I actually bought the fabric to make my outfit pretty quickly after the last convention we went to in March. Clearly, I enjoyed cosplaying and knew that it was something I wanted to do again.

My inspiration started from some flawed (re: cheap) deadstock fabric for sale at Surge Fabric Shop. The blue stripes would be perfect for a Stocking-inspired fit. Because both her and Panty wear many different outfits in the show, I didn’t feel a need for complete accuracy in the costume. But, I still had to have key elements to make the character recognizable. Of course, number one, the stockings. I knew I also wanted to include her honekoneko (bone kitty) plushie. I had a tough debate with myself between buying a wig or dyeing my hair for this costume. I ended up dyeing my hair but I’ll get more into that later. I also whipped up some little angel wings to clip to my top towards the end of the process, along with a hair bow. A few more accents here and there and I had a costume I was pretty happy with!

As mentioned above, I started with 2 yards of the striped athletic fabric, along with a yard of pink lace, and soft pink elastic. For the top, I set out to make a lace support bra, inspired by a blog post on Surge’s website. Ultimately, the lace did barely anything to support me and was more of an accent than a structural feature. I made a conscious effort to include pink accents in the outfit with all the blue in the main fabric. So at least the lace was pink ;). I also purchased 2” wide elastic for the top’s waistband and I really like how wide and comfortable it is. I will probably use it for more tops in the future. The top is very easy and comfortable to wear. While I think I am understanding making sports bra-esque tops a bit better, I would make this differently if I were to do it again. I would clean up the construction a bit and ditch the lace supports and just have lace accents elsewhere instead.

I made some simple booty shorts for the bottoms. I made a pattern based off of a pair of shorts I already had. It sewed up pretty quickly. I feel like I stripe-matched well on the one visible seam. I used pink soft brief elastic as the waistband and did a simple hem on the leg openings. This was the least brain-taxing part of the whole project.

For the stockings, I didn’t want to use any of the light blue or white. The raw fabric was a little too short to do that so I had to sew some of the dark stripes to each other to make it long enough. I followed my Daki leg warmer pattern for this step. I think I could have made these stockings a little looser but they do the job just fine. The seam where I sewed on more dark stripes to make the legs longer kind of cuts in on my calf a bit, so I wish I either gave myself a longer seam around the leg or put it in a different spot, so it would hit just under my knee or closer to my ankle to be a little less noticeable. But lesson learned. I really wanted the stockings to be able to stay up at least decently well on their own. The fabric tape I used for my Daki leg warmers worked for most of the day, but failed later on and left my skin with red patches. I used more soft brief elastic and measured just by going around my leg and holding it to how tight I thought it should be. I serged it onto the top of the stocking and zig zagging the elastic down in an effort to help the elastic lay flat against my leg. I did a simple zig zag hem at the ankles and the stockings were ready to go. I was very pleasantly surprised with how well they stayed up all day. I adjusted them here and there of course but for the most part they were fine! :)

For the honekoneko, I assumed I was going to draft my own pattern for it until I realized that I could search the internet for one first. Sure enough, I found separate patterns for the body and head and was able to piece them together. Thanks internet. This took some stress off my shoulders since it was getting closer to the con and I had to ration my time. I traced the pattern from my projector onto re-used paper packaging to make a physical copy. From there I just cut out the fabric and sewed it all up. I filled the plushie with 100% re-purposed fabric trimmings from Melanzana as part of their ReMelly’d program. I am really excited to be able to use this fabric and save it from being sent to the landfill. The fleece trimmings also add a fantastic weight to the plushie and make it really comforting to hold and snuggle. Now, normally I am always doubting my hand stitches when I finish a plushie, but the hand stitch attaching the head to the body held up very well, especially considering that I held the plushie basically by the head all day and was not being particularly gentle. Honekoneko was a great addition to my plushie collection and I would love to make you one if you so desire:).

Now I’m not exactly sure what Stocking’s vibe should be described as. Pastel goth? Candy goth? A secret third thing? I don’t know if she is considered full goth since she wears a lot of blue and pink as well. But whatever it is I tried to add some accents to help complete the look. I made little lace wrist cuffs with the same lace used in the top and some fold-over elastic. I also made wings out of stuffed fleece and hot glued some simple hair barrettes to them so they could clip into the straps on my top. Finally, I made a bow with two-tone blue ribbon and again hot glued a barrette on. I wore some shiny black combat boots I had for the shoes and some metal earrings.

Okay, back to the hair. Stocking’s hair is blue and pink with bangs. I do not have bangs and my hair is brown. I initially had the intent to wear a wig, but I started shopping for one a bit too late and wasn’t sure it would be delivered on time. I also felt intimidated because I would have to learn a bit of wig styling and handling skills to not have a giant tangled mess on my hands. Every wig was very long to be true to character and had mixed reviews online. To top it off, I felt I would need to purchase additional tools/supplies to help make the wig easier to wear and care for. So, weighing it all in my head, I decided to dye my hair and ignore the fact that Stocking has bangs for this event. I drove to the nearest Sally beauty (30+ minutes away) to buy some Manic Panic in After Midnight Blue and Hot Hot Pink. I dyed the underside of my hair pink and the top blue. I considered bleaching my hair to make the colors pop, but I didn’t want to permanently damage my hair for a temporary costume. Even considering the medium to light brown my hair is, I was pretty happy with how the dye job turned out. It wasn’t turning heads or anything, but it was there and I had blue and pink hair like Stocking (minus the bangs). My hair was also sooo soft and silky from the dye too which was nice:) I’ll be chasing that hair texture for a long time. Now, two weeks after the initial dye, the pink is pretty much gone from my hair while the blue is fading to a teal in most spots and still blue near the ends where my hair was much lighter to begin with. I never had the intention of making the color last as long as possible, but I was still a bit disappointed the pink faded so quickly. I re-dyed it today to have some more fun:). So, with all this in mind, I have ordered a Stocking wig and have hopes that it will be here for the next con. I’ll probably cut some of the length off in hopes of getting less tangles. But, I think having the wig will be easier than dyeing my hair every single time I want to dress up as Stocking, especially for weekend conventions where I’ll probably be in different cosplays on different days. It also gives me a little more freedom with changing around the outfit and still being recognizable. If you have any long wig styling tips please let me know!:)

Overall, the full outfit was really fun to wear and surprisingly comfortable. I wanted to have a simpler costume this time around since we did a day trip instead of staying at a nearby hotel for the weekend. I’m happy with the result and am eager to continue working on more of Stocking’s style:) Thanks for reading if ya stuck around. Forgive my ramblings. peace<3