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Corrections? Contact Richard J. Arndt: rarndt39@hotmail.com.
The Unconventional ComiCon Costumer
A
2007 Interview with Angelique Trouvere!
By
Richard Arndt
RA: We’re
welcoming Angelique Trouvere, model and costumer of
AT: I’m originally from
In my senior year I suspected that there
might be a problem or, perhaps, a hint of things to come because I was
constantly hearing things like…”That’s very nice but a little too
costumey”. By the way, my bestest
friend, Animal, who is an amazing costumer, was turned down for the same reason
when she tried out for Bravo’s “Project Runway”. So it’s not just me
Anyway, I wanted to work in the costume
field but that was easier said than done.
I did, however, spend a lot of time working in theatres and learning my
craft on my own. I worked as a dancer
and, because I was interested in astrology, I called myself Destiny. Dancing was a great job for me in that it gave
me confidence, poise and grace as well as the time and money to work on
costumes and show them too.
In fact, that’s how I found out about
Vampirella. I remember one day I was at
a theatre when I noticed a coworker reading a magazine-sized comic book and I
asked if I could see it. It was a Vampirella
and I was instantly hooked. I guess it
was love at first bite? There was an ad
in the book that told of a ComicArt Convention that was happening in the near
future. That was Phil Seuling’s ComicArt
Con of 1972 and that’s where it all began.
RA: The first
time I heard of you was the Gerry Boudreau article that ran in the back of most
of the Warren Magazines in 1973. Was
that your first con appearance?
AT: Actually, my first convention
was Phil Seuling's ComicArt convention which was held over the July 4th
weekend in 1972 but I only went for one day, just to check out the dealer's
room—I wanted to find more Vampirella comics and had no idea there even was a
masquerade.
I met some really wonderful people at this first con. They were fans and
dealers and they told me about the masquerade, which I had just missed, and suggested
that I should enter the next year’s since I was interest in costume making.
So a year later, my friends and I showed up at the 1973 Seuling's July
ComicArt Con masquerade. I was dressed
as Vampirella. As a budding costumer back then, Vampi was—or rather HAD to be—my
first costume for competition.
I loved Vampirella--she was everything that I aspired to be: brave, strong,
a true champion, beautiful, tall....
By the way, many costuming fan-girls had a Vampirella costume in their
collections—it was the gold standard of costuming back then. In fact my
friend, Kathy Bushman, recreated by hand the very first Vampirella costume two
months after the Vampirella magazine premiered, entering it in the 1969
WorldCon masquerade in
Anyway, as we wandered into the area where the masquerade entrants awaited
the start of the show, my friends pointed out the other Vampirella to me. Heidi
Saha was tall and very pretty—her baby face sported blue eye shadow and
lipstick red lips. As she peered out
from under the long black bangs of her wig she reminded me of a beautiful doll.
Someone told me that she was 14 years old
and I remember thinking how young she was and that she must be rich because her
bat wing earrings were gold, as were her armband and bracelets. Her boots were an exact replica from the
famous 6-foot tall Jose Gonzales poster.
It was a well-made and detail oriented
costume that knocked my socks off.
I made my earrings out of cardboard that I’d sprayed with gold
paint and attached to ear clips. Then
I’d jury-rigged the rest of the accessories with other cheap materials. Sadly,
my boots were totally wrong: black vinyl with chunky heels but it was what I was
able to afford at the time. (insert sad violin music here...}
My costume was made from a stretch satin that my friend Stephanie
and I worked on to fit within an inch of its life. Stephanie was a great help
with the fittings of such a dicey costume and together we figured that since
Vampi's costume looked shiny and was curve fitting in the comics and poster, than
that's what we should aim for.
Heidi's costume was made of polyester and
cut like a swimsuit but it still looked great.
She even had a paper-mache bat! I love attention to details!
Man! I would've loved to have had a
paper-mache bat...
Speaking of the paper-mache bat, I spoke
with a very nice lady named Perdita Boardman, who confirmed that she actually
made Heidi’s Vampirella outfit from the bat to the boots, with the exception of
the jewelry. Perdita and John Broadman were great friends of Art Saha, Heidi’s
father and Perdita readily agreed to use her considerable costume skills to
recreate the Vampi costume when Heidi’s mother, Taimi asked her for help.
I believe that Heidi’s parents had Perdita
make the costume because they needed a professional looking outfit for the
promotions that Jim Warren wanted to set up.
Perdita was not aware of this aspect and considered her work on the
costume as a favor to a friend. Heidi’s
mom was very proud of the fact that she made all of Heidi’s costumes herself
but, in this case, her skills weren’t good enough for Warren’s demands for
complete perfection, which was a trademark of his.
By the way, I heard that Heidi sold the
costume at an auction house a few years ago—I wonder if that’s true and how
much it sold for?
Meanwhile, back at the 1973 masquerade, as I was waiting around, I noticed
that Heidi seemed sad—like she wished she could be somewhere else. Everyone else was having a great time but I
couldn’t help but wonder why this girl was so unhappy. I wanted to talk
with her but my friends said I had to go off and get registered—remember,
it was my first competition and I have no idea of what to do. So we went to the
registration area. By the way, it took
me years to figure out that not every costumer has their own entourage…
It was around this point that a short, thirty-something woman with long
brown hair strode in, looked at my costume, scowled, and proclaimed, "Oh,
that's so tacky!" and left in a huff. I was like: Who was that? What?
No hello?
My friends explained to me, "That's Heidi's mother, Taimi Saha."
Well, it seems that Mrs. Saha hated me from the moment she saw me because
she thought that I was stealing her baby's thunder. I didn’t mean to mess up her plans. I just wanted to enter the masquerade as my
favorite character. But to Mrs. Saha, this
was supposed to be "Heidi's con & masquerade” and I was viewed as a
potential threat.
Heidi could not have cared less but her mother did, a lot, so she tried to
get me barred from entering the competition on the grounds that my
costume was cut too low. This was news to me as I was unaware of any
problems with it before—after all, it WAS a Vampirella Costume.
Anyway, it was Phil Seuling who came to me
and told me that I would have to do something about that if I wanted to enter. He was very nice about it but he felt that he
had to back Mrs. Saha on her concerns for decency.
So, let me get this straight, she's
parading her underage daughter around in sexy costumes and she's concerned
about decency? Sheesh!
Well, my friends weren't going to let that happen. One of them came up with an idea and ran off
to get a box of band-aids from a nearby drug store so I was able to cover the
"offending area" with the flesh colored band-aids and thus I was
allowed to enter the masquerade. And I haven't been able to deal with those
sticky little buggers since... {laughs}
I went on before Heidi and the audience went wild when I dropped my cape and
posed and played to them. I think that
Heidi went on last and stood there with the paper-mache bat held aloft in a
copy of the pose of the Gonzales poster and again, the crowd went crazy. So
you can imagine my confusion when a short time later, parts of this same
crowd started to boo and jeer when it was announced that Heidi had won 3rd
place.
Maybe they thought she should've won a
higher place? That would have been
understandable as I thought that her costume was excellent.
However, it seems I didn't know about the
politics of the situation at that time which, as I was later told,
were the reasons for the audience's reaction. However, if the crowd had a problem with James
Warren or her parents, they shouldn’t have taken it out on an innocent
kid!
Poor Heidi. She stood on that stage, holding her pose
like a real trooper amid the boos and heckling—it must have hurt like hell.
I felt so bad for her at that moment and
in that moment, I gained a lot of respect and admiration for that young
lady. I also got some precious insight
into mob mentality: it’s a very scary thing!
As it was, Cortlandt Hull’s wonderful Ming
the Merciless won first place and Darkseid & Co. took second--sorry I
didn’t get their names.
Despite not winning, I still had a great time and I got a really cool
drawing of me as Vampi done by Sergio Aragones himself. He was one of the
judges and drew it up on the spot for me when I visited a friend at the MAD
magazine offices. He even added a bat to my hand! What a guy!!
That was one of the best “prizes” I ever received!
While at this con, I met Anthony Tollin and Gerry Boudreau, who were writers
at
Gerry then asked me if I had any professional shots of my Vampi and I said
no. So he talked with his editor, Bill DuBay, and discussed the idea of
including me in the article. Bill loved the idea and I was given
the name of a photographer they knew that could do the shots quickly. I
was told that I had to get my pics to them asap because the article was going
to press soon.
So I upgraded my boots to look closer to the poster and got some great
pictures within the week! Thank God for
shoemakers, matte black spray
Paint and reasonably priced (good natured)
photographers!
Gerry and Bill loved the pictures and they decided on the one that appeared
in the finished article. Bill also picked a different pose from Heidi's
shots because he felt that it would improve the article
I heard that Mrs. Saha was not very happy when she saw the article in the
November issue of Vampirella #29: "Two Vampirellas Stun 5,500 at 1973
Comic Art Convention". Well, everyone I knew loved it.
I would always say "hi" to Heidi whenever I saw her at cons—we’d talk
about astrology & stuff but not a lot because her mom might be lurking
nearby and neither of us wanted a scene. Mama had some serious issues.
My heart went out to Heidi in that she was just a sweet kid who wanted a
normal life but her mother was bound and determined to make her baby a “star”
regardless of what she wanted.
Actually, I could relate to that in that my mom could be very heavy handed
at times and would make me crazy too. Still, I loved her and miss her terribly.
I think that Heidi wanted to be an adult as soon as possible so that she
wouldn't have to put up with her mother's nonsense, but even today, although in
different cities, they still stay in touch.
Heidi simply learned to take her mom’s moods in stride.
I remember one of the last times I saw her was at a Star Trek con in early
1975. She was dressed in a pink jumpsuit
and her hair was a nice shade of brown.
She wore tinted aviator glasses, pretty hoop earrings and had a small
jeweled decoration on her cheek—the kind of thing a 16 year old would
wear. She was very happy and relaxed.
She wasn’t entering masquerades anymore,
not since some very unsavory stuff went down at the July 1974 Seuling's Comic
Art Con. I believe that Heidi's father, Art, decided to put a stop to the
costuming activities which pleased Heidi to no end. I was very happy for her too.
Sometimes I think it seems kind of odd that Heidi and I are forever tied
together just because we wore the same costume to the same comic-con so many
years ago. Funny how things work out.
After my first
appearance as Vampirella, I wore the costume to a few Halloween parties and entered
it in the masquerade at the
Eventually, I
decided to upgrade my costume and made a new one that had a long skirt added to
it that I’d seen in a Vampi story drawn by Gonzales. I entered this new version of Vampi 2.0 in
the Famous Monster Con masquerade in Nov. 1974 as “Vampirella’s Evening
Gown”. When I stood on stage, I waited a
moment and then whipped off the detachable skirt to reveal the more familiar
and beloved Vampi costume underneath to a very appreciative audience and
judges’ panel. I won 3rd
place for my efforts too. By the way,
you can see all of the masquerade winners with Forry Ackerman and Jim Warren in
Famous Monsters #115’s coverage of the con.
Later, I
designed my own version of this concept as an entry in the 1977 Star Trek Con’s
Future Fashion Show. My ”Drakulon Evening Wear” won 1st place
Alienwear.
Drakulon Evening
Wear
RA: How did Jim Warren respond to your Vampi appearances?
AT: I would
often visit the offices of Warren Publishing to see my friends who worked there
and my first encounter with Jim Warren was memorable. One day I was talking with Bill DuBay in his
office when
To which
OK, so he wasn’t
crazy about me but I really wanted to do promotions as Vampi for his company so
I asked him about it.
Maybe my timing
was off, or more likely, I never had a chance in the first place but
So I guess that
was a “No”…?
Ironically, I
did end up in one Vampirella issue by chance.
When I met Neal Adams at a con, he told me that he had an art studio in
As I shed my
coat and Neal saw the costume, he did what any red-blooded man would do when
faced with a scantily clad pretty girl—he immediately drew a picture of
me!
Hello,
artist…what were you thinking?!?
That sketch
appeared as the frontispiece of Vampirella #44, and if you look closely, you’ll
see me as the model with my coat still clutched in my left hand.
By the way, Neal
was the art director, costume designer, and illustrated the poster/Playbill cover for Warp, a science
fiction stage play by Bury St. Edmund and Stuart Gordon that had some cult
success in Chicago in the mid-1970s, and played on Broadway for a too brief
time.
The other
appearance I’m actually not too sure of, but the cover painting for Vampirella
#32 sure looks a lot like me in costume.
That happened a lot. I’d often
pose for a picture at a con and find a painting of me on a cover of something a
while later.
Jim Warren did
talk about his experience with Heidi Saha in his 1990s interview that appeared
in The Warren Companion which, by the way, is an excellent book for anyone
interested in the
He mentions that
he met Heidi when she was 14 or 15 but I’ve seen at least one photo of him
posing with a younger Heidi, probably taken at Lunacon in 1970 when she would
have been 11. Heidi’s father, Art Saha,
was at one time president of the Lunarians, the group that sponsored LunaCon.
Warren knew the
Sahas through his friendship with Forry Ackerman and Forry had known Art since
the 1940’s when he was a young science fiction fan living in Forry’s hometown,
Los Angeles.
Hey, it was a
long time ago so no one can fault him for not having a clearer memory about
this.
I believe that
Everything
seemed to be going very well but then a serious problem occurred at Seuling’s
1974 ComiCon and the Saha family immediately withdrew Heidi from the
promotions.
A friend of the
Sahas remembers “being with Taimi in a con suite back then when she became
quite tearful and distraught when it dawned on her what she was doing to
Heidi. I think she pulled back on the
stage mother stuff thereafter.”
By the way, for
people who wonder whatever happened to the magazines and posters, here’s what I
know: when
He was worried
about the many photos that he loaned
By the way, in
regard to the Vampirella movie, it’s really a shame that
I liked your
interview with Barbara Leigh and I remember laughing out loud when I read DuBay’s
interview in The Warren Companion relating the time when he and Barbara first met
and they faked out Jim Warren with that kiss!
I liked the way she handled things--she’s definitely my kind of
people!
Although we
never met, I helped Barbara when she first appeared as Vampirella at the Famous
Monsters con in 1975. It seems that she
was having trouble with staying in the costume and a friend from
Both Vampirella
and, later, the Satana costume were gravity-defying outfits. You could do them one of two ways. You could cut them wider so that they covered
enough or you could make them as they were drawn and use two-way tape, which is
also called carpet tape. It’s strong and
super-adhesive on both sides. You tape
one side directly to your body, the other to the part of the costume that needs
to stay put and in most cases it worked beautifully. I hope that “the costumer’s secret weapon”
was of help to Barbara that day.
When it comes to
costumes, it’s all about bringing the fantasy to life. A drawing doesn’t have to worry about falling
out of the costume but a real person does.
While it’s ok to look like you’re going to fall out any minute, it’s not
ok if that actually happens. The tape
allows the fantasy to play on.
I remember an
interview with one of my heroes, Elvira, who talked about the same thing with
her costume. In her case, the costume
was built on a very strong corset and because of her “industrial strength bra”,
her breasts may look like they’re going to fall out but she affirms, “they ain’t
goin’ nowhere”. Believe me, that’s a
great feeling!
RA: How did the Satana costume come about?
AT: After the
masquerade in 1973, I was hooked so I searched for a suitable challenge and
found it in Satana. The costume was sexy
and not too easy. It also involved some
hand-made touches that I could do and I sensed that it would be a crowd pleaser.
Again, with the
help of my friend, Stephanie, I was able to recreate the costume and, this
time, we were very careful when we cut out the center area as I didn’t want a
repeat of the previous year’s troubles.
I embroidered
the ram’s head symbol on the cuffs and made a 3-D ram’s head decoration out of
paper mache and beads that was on the hip of the bodysuit. The fur boots covers had similar pieces on
them as well. I topped off the effect
with my very long human hair red wig and even managed to jury-rig a small
widow’s peak. Then I used red pipe
cleaners to make her distinctive eyebrows, which I then glued to my own. Yeah,
I know: costumers are crazy! I added
some double-sided tape to the right places and I was good to go.
I met Tony
Isabella while wearing the Satana outfit and he’s been a great friend ever
since. I asked him if he had any
memories of those days to help fill in my lapses and he answered “Memories of
you? I think I wrote a letter to
Penthouse Forum once! :)”
“Seriously, I
remember that just about every guy I knew, including me, had at least a little
crush on you. I remember the Vampirella
and Satana costumes. I think we met at
some convention when you were wearing the latter. I had just become Satana’s editor in Haunt Of
Horror… My memory is that you visited my
office at Marvel in the costume when we were talking about doing some sort of
Satana photo-story, which I would have written and you would have starred
in. As you can imagine, some of the
older production people were surprised.
One of them, I can’t recall who, asked me later if you and I were
dating. I think I might have told him
something like, “No, my girlfriend usually wears a Tigra costume.”
Tony added, “I
mostly remember that you were always at these shows and everyone knew you,
everyone liked you. That Satana costume
(and you in it) still knocks me out every time I see it. So sexy and sinister, but not without its
sweet aspect.”
Thanks, Tony,
for remembering so much of those great old days!
I entered Satana
in Seuling’s ComicArt Con in 1974 along with my best friend, Kris Lundi, who
entered her excellent Hawkgirl, which included an amazing pair of handcrafted
feathered wings. We both tied for 3rd place and that was fine with
us because the only thing better than hanging out with your friends is
costuming with them.
Kris would later
change her name to Animal X and become a major influence in costuming on her
own. She inspired me to do wonderful
costumes and is one of the reasons that my work is included in ‘The Costume
Makers Art”, which is a glorious book about costumers and their creations that
Animal spearheaded to the attention of the publishers. I often tell people that I would have bought
the book even if I wasn’t in it—it’s THAT good!
RA: Can you give us any details about the costumes that you’d care
to share?
At: OK, since
you asked, let’s talk costumes! Since
1973, I’ve made about 105 costumes or pieces—give or take a beaded necklace or
two… I’ve always liked recreating comic
book characters because the outfits are so recognizable to the fans and fun to
portray. Among the costumes I made from
DC Comics for myself and others were Wonder Woman, Superman, Supergirl,
Starfire (not the same character as Marvel’s Princess Kori “Starfire”), Batman
and Batgirl. Marvel Comics also offered
up some wonderful characters as well.
Beside the aforementioned Satana and Red Sonja, there was Rogue, Dejah
Thoris and Spiderman. All some of my
best work.
Angee’s sister
Keri (in the Wonder Woman suit) & Angee as a butterfly! Artist Ernie Chan
was so impressed by Angee’s butterfly costume that he drew a sketch of it on
the spot!
Angee as DC’s
Starfire
Angee as Dejah
Thoris
I found that I
enjoy certain elements of costuming like design and engineering as well as
beadwork, wing making and recreation.
I’m also a natural born performer (H-A-M) and dreaming up interesting,
fun presentations is another aspect that I enjoy as well.
All of these
components come into play when I’m working on a costume and I was able to hone
my costuming skills first through the many Comicons, Star Trek cons and SF cons
I attended. People like Animal and other
creative fans helped me to go further than I would have thought possible.
Through my
involvement with Rent-An-Alien, which was an unusual costume business created
by Peter Mosen, I was able to expand my repertoire with costumes I probably wouldn’t
have tried on my own. Frankly, that’s what
made it so rewarding and interesting.
After I left
Rent-An-Alien, I joined Animal in many of her costume adventures and business
ventures—which was too much fun! (like
the time we loaded a 20 foot dragon into a taxi—ok, two taxis…)
In the early
1980s, there was a new kind of convention—CostumeCons! They’re like the WorldCons in that they’re
held in a different city each year but they consist of wall-to-wall costume
programming with no less than 3 competitions: a Science Fiction/Fantasy Masque,
a Historical Recreation and a Future Fashion show. They’re really amazing, exciting, funny and
educational too and so worth the trip!
In the late
1980s, I met another fan, Kristopher Curling, who had his own fan-based comedy
group called, “Doctors In The House” which specialized in Dr. Who comedies and which
later branched out into other fan favorites.
With the ‘Doctors’, I was able to perform comedy and create some very
specialized costumes for the instant costumes/character changes backstage.
By the way, our
sketch comedy also had a unique element too: it attracted some of the attending
celebrities to join in performing with us. I’ll always remember fun-loving Denise Crosby
(Lt. Yar from ST:TNG) gleefully teasing the audience while holding a bundled
baby, “Would you like to see my baby?” and then revealing the baby was a
toaster. When the laughter subsided she
touched her communicator and said wistfully, “Data, We REALLY have to talk!”
…the audience lost it!
We even
attracted Star Trek writer, Peter David, who asked us if we would perform his Trek
play at one convention. We had the added honor of having Worf performed by
Michael Dorn himself! He was really
funny too—great sense of timing and his deadpan delivery really had the
audience and us in stitches.
Out of the 105-ish,
there are five costumes that I think stand out.
1. Vampirella was my 1st costume for
competition and a sort of baptism of fire for my entry into masquerades. Vampi still stands out as a fan
favorite. It’s really amazing how many
websites are dedicated to Vampirella.
One of the first sites I became involved in was one run by superfan
Terry Sanders from Kentucky who put together many of the “live Vampi models”
fact pieces that one finds all over various Vampi sites. Terry spent a great deal of time and energy,
both setting up interviews and posting the model’s photos to Mike Grace’s
website, “Vampirella Revealed”. He also
managed to get some fine pictures of many of the current Vampi models, both
solo and cozying up next to him—he is the envy of many a Vampi fan—trust
me. You can check out his site at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/way/rbp20/models/sanders.htm
and while you’re there, you can click on my name and read my first online Vampi
interview.
Speaking
of Vampi fans, Robin Whale, the creator of an unbelievably extensive site
called Vampilore credits a former site, Vampifan.com with inspiring him to
build Vampilore. Robin explains, “I used
to use Vampifan as my primary point of reference for my collection, and then
one day it was gone. The lost of Vampifan
was one of the main reasons I decided to build Vampilore!” Robin points out that Vampifan.com’s original
owner was Scott Stockwell who was said to have gone to the
I’d
also like to add that before Seuling’s 1973 con, I would often make
costume-like clothing for myself just for fun.
Some were based on my own designs or copied from something that
impressed me, such as the first Broadway musical I ever experienced, which was
“HAIR”. HAIR’s costumes were exciting
and inspirational and the show’s message and spirit still soars within me. HAIR set the tone for my life in a way: it crystallized
a youngling into a thinking, questioning and creative adult (who doesn’t mind
using a George Lucas term every so often…)
One
of the HAIR costumes I recreated for myself was a silver lame (pronounced
“lamay”) pants & crop top from the song ‘The Electric Blues’. The outfit was covered in tiny mirrors which
looked good on stage but, as I learned, were very hazardous to actually walk
around in.
2. A Lady from Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet (or LWPP or
just “Lady” for short) was my first original design that won an award. It was based very loosely on a mention of the
planet in a Trek episode. I made that
one for the
At that particular con, Joan was a masquerade
judge which gave
her a unique perspective. Three of her fellow judges were Star
Trek and movie costume designer, Bill Theiss,
actor Robert
Lansing and writer David Gerrold, of whom she
wrote “David
should not have been there. He was running a fever—even before
Angelique Trouvere appeared in what there was
of her costume.”
It’s ok, Joan’s a friend—really!
I
also loved her bit that she added regarding the decision to
award “Most Beautiful” to me—“The males on the
panel, however,
after they retrieved their eyeballs from
across the room,
decided on Angelique.” Joan always had a great sense of humor.
By the way, I met Bill Theiss a month earlier at the
January
1975 Trek con when I wore my version of the silver
Shana costume
from the episode, “The Gamesters Of
Triskelion”. He was a very
sweet man who graciously complimented my work and
added “Your
Shana was much better than the one on the
show.” When I asked
in what way, he playfully poked my breast and said,
“Yours are
real, hers weren’t.”
Well, at least he didn’t award me “Breast
In Show”…
Anyway, the Lady was a fairly simple costume
in that it
consisted mainly of front and back panels. There was a lot of
skin showing because there was nothing else on
the sides. My
bra, which was heavily beaded and matched the
collar, held up
the front panel. People thought I was naked under the panels
but I wasn’t.
It was an optical illusion I designed when I used
nylon wire to stabilize the bra on the sides
and then I arranged
a matching panty to stay in place by using the
nylon wires in
place of the regular sides. They ran up to the bra strap fore
and aft under the panels and thus I had no
visible panty lines.
The sleeves stayed up with good old reliable
two-way tape and I
just went to town on the headdress and high
heels too! I had
the best time constructing and bringing this
design to life.
Later on, while Kris Lundy and I were walking
down a hallway
after the masque, still in our costumes
outfit, we ran into
Robert Lansing—he was very charming and
flirted with us. He was
a little blitzed but very sweet.
A short time later, I entered this design in a
Future Fashion
Show at a LA based Trek convention called
Equicon. Bjo Trimble,
the lady who saved Star Trek, wrote me a
lovely letter
telling me that my design had won 1st
place in the Eveningwear
division in spite of some opposition to its
winning a place in
any category.
Bjo explained, it seemed that the
young woman
running the con was “somewhat religious” and
thought I was
“terrible for running around in all that bare
skin.” However,
Bjo, and her husband John, went to bat for me
and got the design
approved because it was an nice example of
what people might
wear on other planets. She wrote “…you can be trusted NOT to
get us all arrested.”
I’ve always admired and respected Bjo ever
since she spearheaded
the letter writing campaign to save the
original Trek but now
she had my friendship and affection too. Bjo
was indicative of
the warm-hearted, extremely creative and fun
people I met at my
first west coast convention and I found both
the cons and the
people great reasons to return to
3. Red Sonja. I
made this for Seuling’s ComicArt masquerade in 1975. It started out as a basic bikini that I made
out of a heavy silver fabric to which I added the triangular flaps in front and
back of the bottom. A pair of large hoop
earrings held the sides and flaps together.
I then sewed silver sequins to the two pieces and cut out the shoulder
piece, called a yoke, and bra decorations from mylar. I added some suede-like straps decorated with
sew-on jewels that glamorized the boots and the armband, as well as a thigh
strap which held my dagger. I customized
a pair of brown gloves and added my long red wig to complete the look of what
was then Marvel Comics latest heroine. I
knew it wasn’t perfect but I was pleased with my efforts and was happily
surprised when it was announced that I’d won 2nd place.
Funny thing about Sonja—she always seemed to
demand respect and
I found myself constantly upgrading her over
the next few years.
For example, I sewed down the sequins which I sprayed
with a
matte silver paint to give them a more
realistic look. I also
used that paint on my new yoke that I cut from
a very strong,
yet lightweight fabric called buckram. The hoop earrings I’d
used on the sides were also replaced with
larger and stronger
plastic curtain rings. Later I completely redid the boots and
gloves to match Frank Thorne’s drawings, using
slippers and leg
covers with elastic suspenders. The sequins were eventually
replaced with actual metal disks in which I
punched tiny holes
so they could be sewn on the bikini, then
later on I replaced
those with smaller, metal shank buttons which
made the costume
look and feel more authentic. I was on a quest for the best Red
Sonja costume I could produce. She was always a labor of love
and one of my best loved recreations.
4. Another costume that I’m very proud of is my Daggit costume
from the 1978 version of Battlestar: Galactica.
This was my break-away costume!
Up to that point, I had always been known for my sexy lady
costumes. Daggit allowed me to show a
totally new side of my costuming skills.
This
epiphany happened when I first met a very talented costumer, named Peter Mosen,
at Seuling’s ’78 ComicArt con Masquerade.
I was wearing a beautiful Elinor costume (from the film ‘Wizards’) that
had been recreated by Elfquest writer/artist Wendy Pini for an earlier Worldcon
(SunCon ’77). She went as WeeHawk and together
with her Elinor, she won “Most Authentic Fantasy.” She’d contacted me a few months before
Seuling’s con and asked if I would like to have the costume. I remember her writing “Angie, it’s a prize winner!” It was a sweet gesture and I never forgot her
kindness. By the way, it’s not unusual
for a costumer to give away their costumes to a good home. I well remember the intense joy and
excitement I felt at receiving a headdress that I admired at a costumer’s party
one night and I like giving others that same great feeling in return.
“Angelique
as ‘Elinor’, in a costume recreated by Wendy Pini, with Peter Mosen’s C3PO
& R2-D2 in the background!”
When
I met Peter Mosen, he was wearing his amazing recreation of C3PO which included
an excellent R2-D2 recreation as a rolling prop! Peter added a cassette player to R2-D2’s
innards and whenever he hit a switch, it made R2 sounds, which was very cool
and unexpected for that time. His
creativity and workmanship with hard materials like plastics, metals, etc.
impressed me and because Peter could not sew or work with soft materials as I
could, we decided to join forces.
A
few months later when we first saw the pilot episode for the original Battlestar
Galactica, we were blown away. Peter
immediately began making plans to recreate a Cylon Warrior. I considered recreating one of the ladies’
outfits but their costumes weren’t very challenging. However, that Daggit costume was a whole
‘nother story!
In the show, the Daggit was a costume actually worn by a chimpanzee named Evie. For my costume, Peter made the non-fabric parts, just as I made the fabric parts for his Cylon Warrior. I was able to easily solve his costume pr