my beetlejuice (musical ver) suit, pre and post weathering!
i'm almost surprised how nasty i got it to look. trying to find a stopping point with something like that is pretty hard, i probably could have kept ripping and splattering at it but i like where i left it and i didn't wanna overkill either. plus i just felt a little bad tearing apart a perfectly good stripey suit...might add a bit more green tho.
trousers started as a pair of plain black pants-- they were bought from my workplace but they were too big to actually wear for work, so i sacrificed them to this cosplay lol. painted the stripes, added the fake fabric tear to the right leg, distressed the fabric, weathered the fabric, and handsewed some x-shaped stitches in em.
jacket started as a plain white suit jacket-- it's a technically a women's jacket but i went for it since it was single-button, single-vented, one size too large, and i got it for a good price. painted the stripes, added the fake fabric tear to the left sleeve, distressed and weathered, handsewed some x-shaped stitches in it, and smudged some green ooze(??) onto the lapels and shoulders. i also replaced all the cuff buttons and the front button with black ones!
the only issue i really had was that cuz the trousers are workpants, they're made to take quite a beating so trying to distress the fabric was REALLY difficult. i ended up basically unable to distress the fabric at all, minus the rips at the bottom hems of the pant legs. oh well! i think they still turned out pretty good.
and it's not actually that noticeable, but the whites on the jacket vs the trousers are actually different cuz i did the stripes in reverse (the jacket is white with black stripes...the trousers are black with white stripes) so the jacket appears slightly warmer white and the trousers slightly cooler white. it bugs me a bit but thankfully it's not too noticeable, especially in lower light. if i ever make a version 2.0 i'll definitely actually have my suit parts matching to begin with lol...
the x-shaped stitches were inspired by justin collette's suit for the beetlejuice musical tour! that little detail addition was made for the tour costumes specifically, alex's suit on broadway never had them. i thought they looked SO cool, i just HAD to add them! they were also a great way to...cover up the fact i ripped so many holes in this thing...i really wanted the rough, spider-webby texture to the fabric so i distressed the fabric with a leather roughing brush, a kind of shoemaker's tool that is a brush with teeth made of bent metal needles. it did a GREAT job at getting that surface, maybe a bit too good-- it tore a lot of holes...at first i felt so bad i was ruining the integrity of the suit itself to achieve that look (unlike the official ones-- all "torn" areas of the suit are done with an additional flap of fabric that is frayed instead) but sewing them back up with goth-y DIY-y black-and-white x-shaped stitches made me feel better about it lol.
any questions about how i did anything and i'll do my best to answer!
theartofmadeline
gracieabrams
vaporwave
2087
romaincrisis
