COORDINATE 035: HORNET’S STING

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Dress: Enchantlic Enchantilly (Trois Ribbon Tiered JSK in black, without the bows)
Blouse: Ann Taylor
Headdress: Atelier Beatrice (Lace Maleficent Headband in white), with a handmade birdcage veil attached
Cape: Handmade (from pink shimmer organza overlaid with velvet flocked spiderweb tulle)
Bag: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (Ribbon Heart Bag in black/offwhite, not sure which year since they’ve released this so many times)
Necklace: Handmade (from polymer clay)
Rings: Handmade
Gloves: Offbrand, from Amazon
Socks: Offbrand, from somewhere in Tokyo
Shoes: Bodyline (shoes258 Odyssey Platform Pumps in enamel black)

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This summer my partner and I played Hollow Knight, an old school style 2D video game. It’s kind of like Castlevania in format, difficulty, and creepiness but with insects instead of vampires, and with a dash of cute. You start by wandering into an almost entirely abandoned bug city. One of the few remaining inhabitants tells you of the abandoned world just beneath your feet, that you might find information about your past there, but that it’s also quite dangerous. As you poke your way through the huge underground labyrinth, you solve puzzles, gain new abilities, and uncover lots of secrets. I love this game so much. I think it’s particularly good at evoking emptiness. Even when the game is done, even if you get the best ending (there are five), you still wish you could have done more.

I have wanted an Atelier Beatrice headdress for quite some time, and when a white one with horns came up for a reasonable price on Closet Child, I immediately thought of the bugs in Hollow Knight, many of whom wear white skull-like masks, which sometimes have horns. I decided to make a lolita/cosplay hybrid coordinate inspired by Hornet, one of the main characters. I initially didn’t like her much (she tries pretty hard to kill you, after all) but she grew on me, especially as the game progressed and I learned more about her.

Since it’s a hybrid coordinate and Hornet is not human, I had to think carefully about how to balance the lolita element with still being recognizable as Hornet. Here are some things I thought about while brainstorming how to go about this hybrid, and my solutions.

• As with many cosplay coordinates, this one has a great deal more handmade elements than I’d normally bother with. I used them to work in some specific visual clues – the necklace of Herrah’s mask is pretty obvious, but the rings that echo the shape of the Dreamer masks and the spider webs on the cape are also clues.
• Though it’s completely closed on the original character design, I left the cape open in the front to show off outfit details, since one of the main parts of lolita fashion coordinates are all the small details on the outfit. I wanted to use sheer fabrics to make the cape so that you could see the details underneath through it but having two layers sort of defeated the purpose. I just really wanted pink AND velvet spiderwebs and couldn’t find them in one fabric.
• If I’d had more time, I would have made or bought a plush of the little ghost to carry with me.
• My biggest challenge was figuring out how to get an elegant mask-like look without actually wearing a mask (I wanted to be able to see and talk normally). I tried wearing half masks over my eyes or mouth but they didn’t look right. I finally settled on wearing a white wig, a birdcage veil over my face, and dark eye makeup. For my very first attempt ever at doing something this dark and heavy with makeup I think it looked nice, but if I wear this again I want to make the eyes even darker. Some people thought I had made the horns out of the wig hair because they’re wrapped in white fibers. I guess I’m glad it matched so well :)