Tag: Costumes

From the archives, December 2013:

Cosplay Couture interpretation of Oswin Oswald from Doctor Who

Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson

Photography by Luke Milton

Location: A skatepark and a playground in Claremont

I love Clara in all her incarnations, but it’s Oswin that really captured my imagination. Her look was so iconic and it told you everything you needed to know about her, fun, feminine and a little sporty.

My interpretation is not a massive departure, my main intention was to go formal as Oswin’s costume is quite cheap and the hem is all dirtied up. I went for a darker colour, more like a crimson, the fabric is a net mounted onto cotton to give it a heavier drape and instead of a utility belt I swapped it out for a western style belt, so it still gives that contrast of a feminine dress with a masculine belt.

This is my first Cosplay Couture based on a female character, I don’t know how often I will do that because it felt like half the work was already done for me. But in this instance it’s a character I really love and I wanted to wear this costume to the 50th special screening and that was a lot of fun.

-Courtney Coulson

This shoot was largely improvised and presented a particular challenge for me. I don’t feel like the official Doctor Who publicity photos ever really show costumes in their entirety and they aren’t especially dynamic for the most part. There are plenty of head and shoulders shots of Clara, but nothing that really had me especially inspired. I don’t think that – at this stage in our development anyway – we’re not particularly interested in trying to replicate sets or scenes from the show. I feel that once you start doing that you are back in the realm of cosplay, so instead we were looking for actual nearby locations that perhaps were reminiscent of ideas from the show. I especially liked the plastic playground dome, which gives you a sense of her predicament in her episode, but it using a found environment. And, as always, graffiti walls are a bit of a cliche, but we stumbled upon this dilapidated skate park that was set to be demolished, and I felt that the colours really complimented such a vibrant character. You’ll notice that we shot very hot though – there wasn’t a lot of cover where we were and I was constantly battling a very bright sun. Summer in Perth is horrible for what we are doing!

– Luke Milton