Beatrix

This is a Retired Costume! This category includes costumes that are old, retired, or worn once, or just don’t have enough information to warrant a full portfolio page.

Beatrix – FF9
Made for Animazement 2001
Other Appearances: N/A

Beatrix was my first big “serious” costume. And it was a little bit beyond my skill set at the time.

My grandma helped me and mom make the jacket – based on a dress pattern, using a khaki cotton with navy cotton for the lining, and a dark red knit for the collar. The fabric choices weren’t great, but this was 2001 and we used whatever we could find at the local Hancock Fabrics that was close enough. We used the same dark red knit from the collar to make a pair of pants I’d wear (instead of tights because I had no idea how to find tights that colour). The metallic details on the straps on the front I did with gold puff paint. I also painted the rose on the back of the jacket using fabric paint – it’s my fav part of the costume.

The eyepatch I made out of leftover navy blue cotton from the lining – same for the gloves. Yeah I tried to make fitted gloves out of cotton. I sewed individual snaps all the way up the length of them to get them off and on! The armor pieces were all cardboard tape roll tubes I painted, and they velcroed onto the lovely gloves.

I skipped making the “briefs” that were supposed to go over the pants/tights because I had no idea how to make that without it looking like a diaper.

The boots were some I had, with some vinyl boot covers with the “details” painted on.

My belt was black vinyl, and dad helped me make a big “buckle” out of gold lamé fabric. I had no idea wigs were a thing, so I tried to curl my own hair. I don’t know why I thought that would work because my hair NEVER holds a curl more than 10 minutes.

I wore this pretty much all day Saturday at Animazement. Look, I was committed to the bit LOL. I realized immediately it needed some more work so when I got home, I got online and bought some blue gloves to start rebuilding and remaking parts. But that’s as far as I ever got.

I did take a few more pics of it around the house before I retired it. As much as I would’ve liked to upgrade parts and wear it again, my interests moved on and I just never went back to this. As of 2025, I do still have the jacket and pants – I don’t think I have any of the other parts anymore. I keep playing around with the idea of remaking it completely one day; I think that would be fun to see the difference between the 2001 one version and my sewing skills 25 years later. Maybe I’ll do it in 2031, for the 30th anniversary LOL. Everybody cool with a 50 year old Beatrix?

Read more at my Beatrix tag.