Elsa
Ice Queen Dress from Frozen
Why Elsa?
For the longest time, there were very few Disney Princesses that I felt a connection to. I have never been one for the perfect princess troupe and I usually leaned more towards the villains for my favorites. However, Elsa was something different. She had fears, self-doubt in herself, and anxiety from trauma. She wasn't perfect and she was finding the start of a path to let her be herself and push off the expectations and pressures of those around her. This was the first time that a Disney character, for me, felt relatable and real.
First Debuted: Katsucon 2014
How It Was Made
This costume took about 4 months of almost non-stop work. The skirting and bodice were all drafted from scratch. The bodice has about 2500 custom colored sequins and about 2000 crystals throughout. I hand-painted cut up sequins to create texture to the pieces to make them feel more like ice when looking up-close. I then inlayed various shapes of crystals to add the sparkle and sheen to match the ice.
The cape was done in glitter with a method of application and sealing of my own invention that took over 40+ hours. I created stencils of her snowflake pattern from a mug I had with her on it (there was no artbook or blu-ray yet and I had to pull references from where I could.) I would lay out a mixture of a glue/acetone within a stencil, then lay out the glitter after. This created a bond in which I had little to no shedding of the glitter when completed. The shirt was done in the same method as the cape.
