Apostle of Destruction Jeanne is causing quite a stir at this year's GR⚡️D GALA!
Don't call her Mahoro unless you want her to come after you with her sword.
(crossposted on twitter here)
Keep on reading to see my design inspirations for this year's gala and closeup shots of the details (Abaranger spoilers ahead!):
The main inspiration for this year's fit come from two designers/collections:
Hassidriss's Burning Shadows A/W 2019 Collection for the dress
Miss Sohee's S/S 2025 Collection for the puffy sleeves and long train!
I went through a few different design concepts when brainstorming for Mahoro's outfit. Initially I wanted to do something on the bridal end, but eventually I ended up with something more demonic. Given what happens with Mahoro in Abaranger, I thought the fallen angel/hellfire vibe was appropriate.
Fire is obviously a huuuge part of this design. I wanted to really emphasize the destructive, all-consuming nature of it-- This fire doesn't just burn bright and hot, it reduces everything around it to soot and ash. That image of Mahoro in the Abaranger opening surrounded by flames lived rent free in my head:
Anyway, on to the details!
Starting with the bottom half of the design: Fire, fire, fire! I used red, orange, and yellow beads for the flames on the dress. The train has a darker red to black ombre to show the soot that comes with burning, with a red bead lining at the bottom and red and black beads scattered to look like floating ash particles.
There's a lot going on with the top half here:
I wanted to pay homage to Jeanne's original design, so I took inspiration from her corset-laced cutout pants and put them here as waist cut-outs. I also made the neck wrap in an X/cross shape since that's very prominent in her original outfit
Speaking of the neck/arm wrap thing, that was originally meant to be green as a reference to Dezumozorlya (and his awful vines, eurgh), but the colors clashed too much. Still, I wanted a reference to his vines, and to suggest that Jeanne was being bound and constrained by an outside source.
Coincidentally, changing the neck/arm wrap to black and gold means that it's also colored in Asuka's color scheme :)
Dezumozorlya's brainwashing mark thing was made into a gold beaded accent
Pointy sharp earring because she's a pointy sharp character. The design is supposed to resemble black sludge oozing over a yellow crystal, because corruption/fallen angel vibes
Lastly, I gave her these green beading details at the wrist ends of both sleeves, mostly because I love AsuMaho and wanted to incorporate the promise bracelet somehow :)
Anyway, that's it! idk how to end this so uhhhh. If you made it all the way to the end, I hope you liked my little write up. I'm very normal about Mahoro and Asuka. If you haven't watched Abaranger, do so at your own risk <3
