Fun DIY Peacock Costume

For halloween my friends and I wanted to go as a group and needed an idea fast! I’ve always wanted to be a peacock so we came up with the idea to all be birds. Our theme was, “Birds of a feather, flock together,” once we had that settled it was off to buy hundreds of feathers!

For my Homemade Peacock Costume I used a target stretch skirt for the base, cheap black lace up corset, 3 black and blue boas, 2 peacock garlands from Michael’s, 100 peacock feathers from onlineFeatherstore.com, an additional aqua boa, stretch black belt with clasp, cardboard, duct tape, hot glue, and needle with black thread.

Skirt: To start I hung the stretch skirt from my dress form and stitched the boas in a zig zag pattern running up and down the skirt. Only tacking the boa at the waist band and letting the rest fall freely. After this first tacking was complete I went back in and horizontally stitched the zig zags down to cut down on the “poof”. See the illustration in my images of how the skirt was made. When the skirt was sewn, I added peacock boa strips, aqua boa chunks I cut off and sewed on and individual peacock feathers sewn into the mix. The skirt took around 15 hours…so be prepared for a great outcome but a lot of work!

Corset: Once the skirt was complete I took two sections of the peacock garland and hot glued them up the center of the corset front. Following that base layer I filled in with aqua feather chunks cut from the boa, blue black and finally peacock feathers arranged fanning upwards to my neck. After these were all glued down I hand stitched over the glue to make sure the feathers would hold.

Tail: The most important part of the whole costume was the tail. It had to be grand! I needed a way to attach it to the costume so I could get it on and off for riding in cars or getting through doorways. I started with a black stretch belt sandwiched it between two pieces of cardboard but leaving a track for the belt to move freely.

The card board was cut in a shape like a ball field with the bottom squared off. Once the belt and cardboard were one I started taping the feathers in place facing forwards on the inside and outwards on the outside. (So from the front you could see the eye of the feathers and from the back you could as well).

After the initial height (about 5 ft) was reached with the feathers I cut down the next layer and began to make the fan at a lower level (about 3 ft) repeating this step for 1.5 ft 8 inches and then the base of the tail was finished with garland pieces and rhinestones. I made sure to try the belt on every so many feathers to make sure it was even and balanced. The feathers were so light I didn’t need any other support besides the belt tucked under my corset to hold it in place.

Pairing the costume with crazy teal and blue eye make-up, feathers in my up swept hair, sheer black tights and 5 inch heals the costume was complete!

The other girls in my flock (see picture) were a flamingo, owl, chick, (peacock) and robin.

The entire costume took about 30 hours to complete and was a huge success. Not one feather was lost after partying for a good 8 hours!

This is my favorite costume to date! And the reaction from the crowds of people when a 9 foot peacock and her flock walked in was priceless!

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