Personal Narrative: How Costuming Has Changed My Work Ethic

This was my 2nd year in clothing construction and my 7th year in girls buymanship. If you know me good enough you would know that I don’t dress up often so when I do it must be a special occasion. During buymanship and clothing construction I am able to dress up some and as much as I want to. These last 2 years I have enjoyed making something that I can use quite frequently in clothing construction, doing so makes me feel good about myself and what I've done.

Cosplaying has a big impact on society because people all over the world go to a conventions so they can cosplay however they want. It started as people cosplaying as sci-fi and space military style uniform and developed into dressing up as characters from movies, comic books, and any form of entertainment out there. What began as a fun hobby developed into a contest of who can wear it or make it better. Some people take cosplaying to the next level. They’ll work months on a costume and then dress up on that specific day to cosplay.

As a child, I have always been a visually observatory person. Patterns, textiles, and fashion have always been high interests of mine. My childhood consisted of many Barbie dolls as toys, and it wasn't the Barbie dolls that I wanted to play with, but the clothes that I loved to collect and interchange between the dolls. Creating different outfits for the dolls made me feel as if I was making my own mark in fashion. As I grew older, begging my mother to purchase fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle, and Harpers Bazaar were typical and became expected. While flipping through the pages of fashion magazines, I was enthralled while examining the latest trends from celebrities and models. This is what influenced me to want to work in the fashion industry.

In the essay, “Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory”, American novelist, Michael Chabon, disputes that superheroes utilize their costumes in hopes of ‘concealing’ background knowledge of: who they are, how they obtain their abilities or why they adopted their alter ego (Chabon par. 28). Chabon develops his claim by arguing that people transform instead of escaping reality. Chabon believes that costumes can make a person develop into a stronger, more esteemed version of themselves. His purpose is to emphasize costumes do not keep identities anonymous but are used to display a physical representation of a person’s inner being.

Since the beginning of my Starlette career, I have had a strong desire to be part of the officer line. Starting on the Fabra Dance Team in fourth grade, I developed a fondness of the dance team environment which lead me to join pep squad my eighth grade year as a preparation for the Starlettes. As an incoming freshman, all I saw was passion and unconditional love for the BHS Starlettes coming from the officers during tryout week which caught my attention. After being a part of the Starlettes for a year, the officers have only continued to impress me with their encouragement and built my desire to carry on their legacy.

I played football in high school for all 4 years. My freshmen and sophomore year I wasn't very good. I was a backup and never played. Then came along my junior year, I was still undersized and didn't start but I improved my skill greatly and I started to increase my work ethic. The off-season before my junior year I went hard in the weight room and became strong. I also lost some weight and gained some height. That's hard work in the offseason is what lead to me having a great senior year. My senior year was full of emotion, I felt tired, determined, and at the end of the season I felt sadness with no regret and the love for my brothers. The first thing we had to do to become a great team was build a brotherhood with kids who wanted to try.

I made my way to the costume rack and found my first costume. Every single time I got that costume out I was surprised with how ugly it was. I didn’t mind wearing it, though. It went with my character. Getting more and more nervous, I started to search the dressing room to find a place to sit all my things down while I changed into my costume. I put on the bright, blue skinny jeans and neon orange shirt. On top of that, I wore white sneakers and a lime green cardigan. Any other time I would’ve flipped out about the outfit, but I remembered what I was doing this for. It’s totally worth

The score was sixty-six to sixty-seven, West Point beating Oak Hill with two seconds left in the game. I snatched the ball from the guard with the time ticking down. The clock ticked to .5 seconds left. I unloaded the ball from half court. The ball sailed in mid air spiraling around with tons of backspin.  My shot was a miracle on hardwood!  It splashed like a soft rain drop trickling on concrete.  My team went bananas, jumping around as if they were fish looking for water.  It took me awhile to comprehend the shot, but figured out the feat I accomplished when I got off my crippled, bruised up knees.  I just won the first Oak Hill basketball National Championship in fifteen years on a half court heave.

I have always enjoyed helping people who are less fortunate. I am the type of person who volunteers to read to children who are alone during certain holidays. But one specific even completely changed how I want to help people. In June 2011, I moved back to Colorado and decided to pursue a career in cosmetology. It was a lot of fun and I definitely had a knack for it, but I always felt like something was missing. To me, it honestly started to get kind of boring but I continued my education and continued to thrive in my success as a Paul Mitchell Cosmetology Student. On Feburary 3rd 2012 I had a very important cutting assessment, and it would also be the day I got an emergency called that changed everything. I got an emergency call during my

Fashion designing requires creativity, expertise in colors and fabrics, and artistic talent, but something that might be overlooked is that it also requires tremendous patience and perseverance. That is made clear by talking to the CEO of Shabby Apple.

My sister and I have always been huge geeks together, we both like anime, comics, cartoons, and sci-fi films. We have always bonded that way through those things. When I was a sophomore my sister thought it would be a really cool idea to take me to this big convention in Raleigh called Animazement. Usually at conventions you take your interests and bring them to life with cosplaying. My sister and I decided to do Sailor moon and Chibiusa, a big sister and little sister duo costume. She worked so hard on our outfits, I worked on the little details and cleaned up the wigs. When we finally got to the convention it was extremely intimidating because of the crowd of people. At the time I had severe social anxiety, but when we got into our costumes

Statement: Cosplay’s popularity growth is fast and there are lot of questions in the mind of people about cosplay. It’s meaning and reason varies from person to person and there are negativities to it.

The biggest fear I currently harbour is not finding a decent job that can sustain the costs of living. I am fresh out of university and ready to enter the workforce. Although it’s been weeks —almost a month, since I’ve graduated, and still haven’t gotten any luck in job searching.

Many people also argued that cosplay can be an act of obsession. Many fans of anime and manga want to cosplay their favorite characters. However, some people develop a certain obsession, where cosplay becomes an integral part of it. Teenagers who get more satisfaction in the world of cosplay than in real life would get addicted to the fancy world of cosplay. It is easy for the cosplayers to mix up the real world with the cosplay world.

This paper will be discussing the cosplay, or costume play, subculture. In this paper, it will also go over who makes up this particular subculture, what it takes to be a cosplayer, what this subculture does for society, how society sees those who participate in it, how and when it came to be, most famous cosplay costumes, and what this subculture provides for those who take part in it.