A Tale of
three Elsas

It’s always been my intention to create a written record of the cosplays I make. I have a running list of posts, tutorials, and cosplay anecdotes I want to share rolling around in my head. In practice, I haven’t been that successful at plucking them out of my brain and writing them down. I struggle to find a starting point and end up putting the whole thing off indefinitely.

I suppose there’s no better place to begin than with the dress that started it all. Elsa’s ice dress. Let’s do it.

 Honestly, I don’t know what it was about Elsa’s ice dress the awoke some primal need in me to create it. It’s not practical, it makes no sense, and I had no business attempting to recreate it with the skills I possessed at the time. Nevertheless, I jumped in blindly, bought thousands of sequins and crystals, and convinced myself that I could totally make it happen.

 Elsa 1.0 was my attempt to tackle the costume from the movie. It was also the first time that Stephanie and I coordinated on costumes (for those of you who don’t know, Stephanie is my cosplay partner in crime, check out our Instagram to see more of her amazing work). While I did make the skirt, most of this cosplay was assembled from store-bought pieces. I bought a mesh undershirt and cheap corset to bedazzle and did my best to style a cheap, blonde wig. Oh, that wig. *cringes*

Was it perfect? No. Was I incredibly happy and proud of how it came out? Yes. Did we look adorable together? Absolutely.

As fun as it was, that was the extent of our cosplay adventure for a couple years. It was a great experience, but I don’t think either one of us really thought it would be more than the occasional one-off thing.

Fast forward two years to 2016. We still weren’t cosplaying, but we were right on the edge. Stephanie and I had become regular patrons at the Houston and Austin faires. We were piecing together our garb from things we bought at local costume shops and a couple of homemade skirts. It wasn’t fancy, but the bright colors really stood out at faire and earned the occasional Disney Princess comment. Not long after this that we started throwing around the idea of steering into the whole Disney Princess aesthetic and making our own versions of Anna and Elsa.  

This is when Elsa 2.0 begins to make an appearance. This cosplay took on an indistinct fantasy vibe. The base pattern I used was Simplicity 1551, aka Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. The rest was chaos and poorly constructed ideas.

There were parts about this cosplay that I loved, but I was never truly happy with this version of Elsa. It went through *several* updates and changes. I tried redoing the sleeves like 3 or 4 times with different styles and materials. Nothing was hitting the mark. But my main gripe with this cosplay? The snowflake pattern was incredibly uneven in the front. I know you can’t tell from the pictures, but the design was shifted by like four inches. I honestly have no idea how it happened, and it took me weeks to notice it (and then I couldn’t un-notice it). This cosplay was a hot mess, but it wasn’t a total loss. It taught me early on that it’s okay to wear something that is a work in progress. Set goals, but also know that there will be setbacks and lessons to learn. Cosplay doesn’t have to be perfect but it does need to be fun. 

This brings us to the third and final rendition of Elsa’s ice dress. Elsa 3.0. I think this dress came around in 2018 which accounts for the jump in quality. By now we had been consistently creating for 2 years. I had learned from my *many* mistakes as well as grown my skills as a seamstress. I took the things I loved from the original design such as the beadwork and snowflake pattern on the overskirt and really committed to the Tudor/Elizabethan design. While I have made a few upgrades over the years, this gown exists mostly in its original form. She also took a trip out to Colorado where she frolicked in the snow and confused a bunch of skiers.

Over the years, we have gone on to tackle more versions of Anna and Elsa. They have become some of our signature characters and probably our most well-known designs. Each version has pushed us to challenge ourselves and learn new skills. But these are stories for later blog posts.