Tag: fashion

Cosplay Couture Tinker Bell

From the archives, March 2024:

Cosplay Couture interpretation of Tinker Bell from Peter Pan

Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson

Photography by Luke Milton

Location: University of Western Australia

Tinker Bell is one of those characters that is cosplayed a lot but is hard to do well. Disney makes great business decisions, but sometimes less-than-great creative decisions. The mainstream Tinker Bell has become a spritely valley girl with a posse of fairy friends who are all a vehicle for merchandise. But if you go back to the original book, Tinker Bell is far more volatile. She can be unpredictable, jealous, and vindictive. Tinkerbell has a bite. But there’s also a beautiful, ethereal, otherworldly nature to her. I think our biggest success with this shoot was integrating into our environment and my favourite pictures are those where she is lost in the green.

-Luke Milton

“A girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage” -Peter and Wendy; J.M Barrie

Tinker Bell has had a fairly consistant, very feminine, silhouette from the beginning. Though she wasn’t the first, she has certainly informed pixies and fairies that came after her visually. I used lace as a nod to skeleton leaves and I imagined she might pick up hints of pollen and other parts of nature, so the sponged on pastel shades are intended to reflect that. As for the wings, the bigger the better! They are constructed from “fantasy film” and wire, by far the most involved aspect of this costume.

-Courtney Coulson

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Cosplay Couture Robin (Carrie Kelly)

From the archives, February 2014:

Cosplay Couture interpretation of Carrie Kelley as Robin from the Dark Knight Returns

Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson

Photography by Luke Milton

Location Claremont

I’ve always been a huge fan of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. The female Robin is a nice twist but what I’ve always loved about the design is that it’s very androgynous. As a teenager first seeing Carrie Kelley Robin I wasn’t even sure if it was a boy or a girl. I think it’s the glasses that really make this one. Without them it could be any Robin, but with them it’s definitely Carrie.Location wise the goal was to keep this as absolutely simple as possible. Miller uses very sparse backgrounds, and there’s so much iconic colour in the Robin costume itself that I didn’t want anything competing it. We waited until the sun started going down and tried to get some striking, colourful shots with the Robin character spotlighted.

– Luke Milton

This is my first superhero Cosplay Couture and while I like comic characters, they are re-designed all the time, whether it be by official sources or the fans. They are also very much tied to their specific colour schemes and logos. It’s a bit intimidating to try and adapt to fashion. But there’s something about Carrie that just spoke to me, I love her androgynous look, I love that her costume is just thrown together and mostly from a halloween costume. She’s scrappy, she’s plucky, she’s my Robin.

My intention was to create an outfit that felt as if she had found all these items in her own wardrobe and there are many practical items in this outfit, for example the cape has been replaced with a hood that sits like a collar. But of course I still wanted to keep that sense of fashion, the vest is the statement piece and the utmost attention was payed to the tailoring. Overall the silhouette had to be sleek. As for the make-up, I decided to go with black lipstick as it’s bold and lends itself to the graphic (novel) look.

-Courtney Coulson

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Fashion illustration of Phil

This was how my friend Phil appeared to me in a dream. He was doing some sort of Artic expedition, but could walk through a door in the middle of the tundra to return to his apartment. Phil says it gives him League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibes, I am inclined to agree. His outfit was of fur and leather and wool of the deepest, richest blues and browns, I tried my best to capture it, but this will have to be close enough. This is my first attempt at using Krita.

I hate colouring, whether it be with traditional mediums or digital. I’ve spent most of my life drawing in black and white. It’s hard to start thinking in terms of colour.

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Cosplay Couture Herbie the Lovebug

Photography by @itzu.me
Car belongs to @inatski

Costume and makeup by me


I think I drew the design for this costume about a year ago, then just this past weekend I finally got to bring it to life with a beautifully restored Beetle at my side. I can’t thank my collaborators enough for helping me with this project, it couldn’t have happened without you.

The design process was simple, I envisioned Herbie as a youthful and cheeky tomboy, I took elements from 1960’s fashion as well as race car driver uniforms and accessories. I looked at the likes of Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn for inspiration. I knew I needed a round hat to really evoke the shapes of the Volkswagen, and the dress is a simple A-line silhouette, it was best to keep things clean and minimal and let the stripes do all the talking.

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Cosplay Couture Tenth Doctor

From the archives October 2013:

A Cosplay Couture interpretation of the Tenth Doctor

Costume (tailored pre-existing suit) and styling by Courtney Coulson   

Photography by Luke Milton

Shot around a graveyard in Nedlands

This was our first exploration into Cosplay Couture, therefore the costume is accurate as I had worn it for a while as a normal cosplay. The reinterpretation all came down to presentation and style. Wedge heels, make-up and hair, oh yes the hair. To me that’s 10’s signature, it had such a presence and we really wanted to play around with it.

The earrings are symbolic, the roses, well they’re a reference to a certain companion obviously and the chain of rings are reminiscent of Gallifreyian font. as well as the general look of 10’s TARDIS.

Also 3D glasses make great accessories!

-Courtney Coulson

Our first location shoot ever and filled with happy accidents. The very English-looking doorway featured prominently here was actually discovered while sheltering from the rain but it provides a wonderful backdrop for bringing out the Doctor’s colours. My favourite thing is by far the hair though, which quickly became a character of its own.

-Luke Milton

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