Y'all. Buttercup who is a seasoned DragonCon attendee warned me that there would be people at Con who would/might pick apart my costume. That this or that might not be authentic etc. And when I sat in on the Brit Costume Pagaent there was mention of a guy who couldn't find the exact Matt Smith Doctor Who shirt - so he stitched the pinstripes by hand. And another guy has been working with a taylor for over a year on Tennant's Who costume - the brown suit with blue stripes - matching each little stripe up exactly to pictures of Tennant's costume. I thought - boy these people sure are a bit anal about their costumes.

So here is the picture I used as my guide for my Dolores Umbridge costume.
And here is my end result which I was very happy with. It doesn't match perfectly by any means - but it was close enough and everyone that saw me at Con and prior to Con said it was great. So I decided to enter the Young Lit Costume contest and that is where I became one of those people.

Now during all of Con walking around in costume I had not seen another Dolores. I heard rumour there was one but at the contest there were three of us! Three. One gal did a spot on job and I loved her costume simply because she found the beautiful pink/brown houndstooth fabric and she sewed her entire costume.

Then the other Dolores - well - I wasn't too fond of her costume at all. It didn't help that she won honorable mention for accessorizing at the contest and me? Nada. Zip. Nothing. The problem I had was the other Dolores was covered in flowers. Flowers my friends! Her hat? Flowers. Her purse? Flowers. Her shoes? Ballerina slippers with flowers on them. Her jacket? Flowers! I suppose the judges never read or saw the Harry Potter books/movies because I don't recall Dolores ever wearing flowers. I likened it to Darth Vader wearing flowers. It just ain't right. I did find a picture of the flowery Dolores but I didn't want to post it as to twerk her off. This post is enough! lol

While I was disappointed I didn't win anything - Tobey was pretty upset as well. But the most important part was that I had a blast wearing that costume. Because we entered the costume contest we received wrist bands to enter the Yule Ball early. Chewie got sick and he and Peanut didn't attend and Tobey was at a panel. So I was left to my own devices and went into the character as best I could.

I walked around separating 'students' that were dancing too close. My favorite line was to tell the students, "No, no no! No booootay dancing!" Which usually ended up with the kids asking me how they should dance and I would do my best Carlton for them and reminding them that dance was more of an attitude then anything else.

One of the other contestants who went as one of the Weasley twins asked if they could borrow my hat at the ball. So later on I let my hat be borrowed and when the twin came to return it I played along chasing Fred or George around the dance floor yelling, "Weasley, give me my hat! My hat! My hat!" - someone took some video of that bit and I expect it to be up on youtube one day. God help me.

I also reported to several Dumbledore's at the Ball about all the shenanigans going on on the dance floor and every cute guy I saw I approached them and said I saw them eyeballing all of me and I was sorry I couldn't dance with them because I was chaperoning. Personally I think I made a fabulous Dolores even if I didn't get any honorable mentions at the Ball about my costume.

Oh. And I did do the bump with a Tom Baker Doctor Who!

Flowers. Eh gads.

~ame

on Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Labels: DragonCon