vs. Cosplay

With Kerry (that's my wife, if anybody finds this who doesn't know me) increasingly interested in costuming lately, I've spent a lot of my time thinking about cosplay. Cosplay, for the uninitiated, is the idea of dressing up in costume. Some people would say there's more to it than that, and perhaps there is, which is something I'll be discussing, but that's the essential idea.

The concept of 'cosplay' has grown massively in the last ten years (although not enough yet for Microsoft to recognise it as an official word, or so the red squiggly line on this blog tells me), particularly in geek culture. It's something often seen at the classic comic book conventions, but is spreading further and wider. Part of this is down to the fact conventions are spreading further too, particularly in England which never used to have many, and now there are several per year in most popular cities. Part of it is also probably down to the rise of geek culture in general. These days, geek culture dominates the media, in truth, with superhero movies reigning supreme at the box office and video game releases being major events.

But what makes cosplay 'cosplay', and not simply fancy dress? What's the difference between attending a fancy dress party and being a cosplayer? Apart from sobriety, of course (at least if you're an adult and take to fancy dress parties as I do). That's not such an easy question to answer. On the surface, and I'm sure many costumers would claim, it's down to quality. Traditionally, cosplayers put an awful lot of attention to detail (not to mention money) in to their costumes, moreso than perhaps a lay person would ever consider. I've seen things such as (and these are just a few) across various websites; people debated the exact type of stitch used to hold a jacket together, people becoming excited because they found a run of fabric that was used in the original costume, people trying to replicate an animated costume in period accurate materials and a person thrilled because the screen accurate gloves for his costume 'only' cost £60.00. There's a real sense of pride to costuming for some cosplayers, and getting it as accurately as possible. Particularly if they're replicating a live action costume, as they'll often seek to replicate the exact materials used (or be as close enough), or of course, if possible, buy the original garments (for example, sales of Crombie coats went up when Peter Capaldi was announced to be wearing one for Doctor Who as many people sought to acquire the same coat, even though this particular coat was somewhere in the range of £800). Other times, people attempt to create the costumes from animated shows or movies (anime is particularly popular), where you get a whole range of attempts, from replicated the animated look to making it realistic.

And then you get the people who go the other way, and try to create original costumes. Again, these are usually incredibly detailed, but often based around original concepts or twists. These can vary again, from ideas based on concept art, fan art, or simply original ideas. Steampunk variations on characters are popular, as are Star Wars ones, or perhaps obvious reversals (for example, 'Fire Elsa', the character from Frozen, but as if she had fire powers, seems to be a popular variation).

But does that mean you're not cosplaying if you buy a cheap costume for a character you love? Or if you assemble it from things you find in a charity shop (or thrift store, if you're American)? Or if you just make it out of things you already own for fun? Is that not cosplay? I'd say it obviously is. It seems to be a hobby that can be quite judgemental. There are people out there who make their own costumes from scratch, so look down on those who buy them. There are those that buy the extremely high end ones. There are those that buy mid-range ones that are considered 'cheap'. And there's the aforementioned fancy dress. And everybody has opinions of other people. Particularly in a hobby based around dressing as a character; how do you react when you see somebody else dressed as that character? If they're better than yours, or worse? What do you think and what do you say? It's not a surprise some people get arrogant or snobby about it.

But that all makes it sound like a negative hobby, and from what I've been seeing, it's really not. People come together not only with a love of the characters, but a love of getting to be somebody else. They seem to get quite a lot of abuse throughout both the internet and real life, like cosplaying is the ultimate 'nerd' label, but it's a surprisingly social hobby. People make friends with other costumers, discuss where they got theirs from and how they made them, form groups that work together for similar characters, and generally have a passion for what they do that makes them want to do it often, for parties or for advertising events, and usually that makes them friendly and willing to have fun, as well as make others smile. With Kerry's particular interest, I see this a lot in pages she looks at with Disney cosplayers, who love dressing up and entertaining children. It's a social, friendly hobby. Certainly moreso than sitting in a darkened room playing games.

It's certainly not cheap, however. The 'cheap' cosplay sites (the one I frequented to try and do a costume when I agreed to join in with Kerry was www.cosplaysky.com) still have their costumes usually ranging around the £100 mark (roughly, some much more, some a little less), but this is really considered cheap in this hobby it seems. High end sites seem to sell single garments for closer to £600 (for example, a single coat for part of a costume), and that's without mentioning the popularity of armoured characters, like the Master Chief from Halo or stormtroopers from Star Wars. A lot of people make their own, and the ingenuity they show in doing that can be quite inspiring. I met a Jack Sparrow cosplayer a few weeks ago who showed me his pirate hat was constructed around an old No Fear baseball cap. I had no idea. When I saw him, my first reaction was to assume he had spent an awful lot of money on a high end replica. But instead he'd made the entire costume himself.

And as soon as a child walked near, he snapped back perfectly in to character, and that was that. Clearly people love a chance to be somebody else, it's why we all play video games, and this is another extension of it, but here it's great because it seems to bring joy to other people too.

It's a strange hobby to get your head around, and I'm not sure I understand it entirely myself yet, but I know it does Kerry a world of good getting to pretend to be somebody else, and I'd be lying if I didn't say my brief forays in to it hadn't be an awful lot of fun too.