Sidewalk Superheroes

The time has come to tell you all about the enormous headache that comes with being Batgirl. Plus, Catwoman and I took the day off to catch up on things and rest up before tomorrow’s craziness, so there’s no boulevard stories for today.

First, let me tell you about the Sarah Palin Batgirl:

This costume is a nightmare. I ordered it off of Amazon, thinking I would go with the more classic Yvonne Craig 60s Batgirl look. She was purple and yellow, as you can see:

And when I finally do get around to perfecting my Julie Newmar’s Catwoman pattern, I can make Yvonne’s Batgirl perfectly as well. It’s the same exact suit, just different colours. Thanks, shoestring budget TV shows! You really helped me out on that one.

Anyway, the choices for Batgirl are really limited when it comes to pre-fab costumes. You can either do the Gotham Girls purple and yellow, as modeled by Sarah Palin above, or you can do the black and yellow lame, vaguely slutty Batgirl:

But this has no appeal for many reasons: 1) It’s no specific Batgirl, and I hate half-assed costumes designed solely to make something sexy or slutty. 2) It looks even cheaper than Bat Palin. 3) Bat Beggar wears this costume on the boulevard, sans mask. I don’t want to even hint at the idea that I would be ripping her off. I would say, “That’d be like ripping off the message on a homeless guy’s sign,” but I actually have seen that done on the boulevard, which makes my head hurt. (By the way, the ripped off message was, “Ninjas killed my family. Need money for kung-fu lessons.”) There was actually a third, less widely available option, but no one in their right mind wants to be Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl, so we won’t even go there.

Back on track, I figured that with a few basic modifications, the purple Batgirl suit would work well. She’s pretty recognizable, and the Bat logo on the chest should give it away to the more clueless.

So I order it, and the costume finally comes, and it’s blue. What? Damn. Blue as blue can be, nowhere near being mistaken for purple. Okay, I can dye it. I’m a crafty gal, I can salvage nearly anything and make it sing. I put the suit on, ordering a medium because I heard they can run small and I’m taller than average for my weight and measurements, and the crotch comes to mid-thigh. Not only that, but the armpits start about halfway on my upper arms, giving me flying squirrel arms:

Shit. To make matters worse, the costume only comes with crap yellow gauntlets, not gloves, or even gloves with attached gauntlets, and the boot tops don’t fit at all. But it’s the only game in town, especially since my A choice, Harley Quinn, seems to have been discontinued all of a sudden and I don’t have enough money or free time to design a pattern and make her right now. Padmé is only really good with the other Star Wars characters, and isn’t terribly warm, even for an L.A. winter. So I make do with what I have. In two days I reinforce all the seams so they won’t unravel or split every time I sneeze (the most common problem with one-time store bought costumes), and somehow hack the crotch about four inches up to where I actually come together. It’s still a little tight around there, though only when I’m sitting down, so that’s pretty good for not really taking the entire thing apart. I also take in the bust (with its crooked darts) and armpits about six inches, so it finally fits me.

At this point I swear that Quasimodo was the dressmaker’s model for this costume. The legs are ridiculously short, the boot tops, attached to the legs from the knees down (which sucks, because you can’t forgo them), only fit about a size 5 shoe (I’m an 8), and the chest is about 44″. The waist is fairly trim, and while I know I’m slim with my measurements of 34-24-34, I also know what industry standards are and this costume ain’t it. Did I mention that the bizarre cape, slit up the middle, is attached as well? And crookedly at that?

The mask is another nightmare. My avatar picture was taken in the mask before I hacked it, and it took loads of pulling, pushing, pinning, and swearing to even get it to that point:

Backing up my theory that the famous bell ringer of Notre Dame cathedral was the form, the lower half of the mask was made for a lantern jaw. I don’t think my head is any smaller than normal, so my face shouldn’t be either, but I’m not kidding when I say I had to take up a good 3-4 inches of fabric to make this wearable. On top of my gathering, I added snaps on either side, so that after I pulled the mask on, I could snap some additional fabric shut to make it really form to my head. Otherwise, the thing would gape like a shark that died halfway through eating my head, and it wouldn’t fit at all. The eyeholes are cut large for the tops of your eyes, which my larger than normal peepers and very long eyelashes appreciate, but no matter how you adjust it, the bottoms still cut into your lower lids. So I had to cut those back too, and while the mask still rides up and tries to remove my contacts during the day, it’s more bearable. The bat ears were floppy and lopsided, and I finally stitched them together as best I could to try and keep them pointed at the skies. The fabric from my temples to my cheekbones is reinforced with some ribbing I found laying about, otherwise it would buckle uncontrollably. Some stiff elastic lines the cowl down my jaw to try and keep it from falling open and showing off my cute ears.

I pretty much redesigned that lame ass $35 costume just to make it wearable. I still haven’t received my dye in the mail yet (it seems to take 3 days just to get a package from Michigan to Wisconsin — really? Pony Express still alive and well up there?), and even ordering yellow boots has been a nightmare, but at this point I’m just ready for something new. Maybe I can alternate, or at least put Palin Girl in the back of the closet ’til I’m less pissed off at her. For today, dear readers, I caved and realized I have to spend a bit more for quality. Last night I found a good vinyl catsuit, and today I ordered it:

Smoking hot, right? They were out of smalls so I had to get a medium, which will probably require some taking in on my part. Still, a small price to pay for getting a much better, much sexier costume that’ll probably be a lot warmer, too. See girls, this is how you do a sexy costume. Find the sex appeal that’s already there and work it like you own it. If you have to flash your tits, have your arse hanging out, or show more skin than clothes to get a reaction, you’re doing it wrong.

I also bought a little black eye mask, since Batgirl cowls apparently don’t exist, and I can do this with either black or yellow boots and the black and yellow cape and Bat logo I’m shortly going to rip off of the blue Batgirl suit. (Black & yellow cape on a blue costume — WTF, people?) I’ll keep my auburn hair out, since Batgirl’s always a redhead, and just throw some more henna in to redden it. Ooh, I can’t wait! I think I’m starting to develop a vinyl fetish over all of this.