Last Minute, Easy Sailor Mercury Costume

This year for Halloween, I was studying abroad in the UK, about 2,500 miles away from my home in Wisconsin, USA. They aren’t as big on Halloween here as we are back home, but I knew that I would still want to dress up, and make my own costume, as I started doing that a few years ago. However, I didn’t really think about what or who I wanted to be until less than week until Halloween. I finally decided I really wanted to be a character from the anime series Sailor Moon. I picked Sailor Mercury, as she is my favorite. I was surprised how many people reconigzed my character right away without having to ask! One guy even started singing the theme song when he saw me. I guess it proves I did a good job with it. I thought it would be difficult finding materials for my costume, (as I’ve only been in the UK for less than 2 months and am not sure where to get certain things) but Primark proved to have everything I needed! The materials you will need include:

-A plain white t-shirt
-A skirt (color of your choice – there are quite a few Sailor Scouts who all have different colors for their outfits.)
– Extra fabric to match the color of your skirt.
-A bow
-A gold headband (Claire’s always has these on hand)
-White Gloves
-Stockings (optional – they helped keep me warm!)
-Scissors
-Hot glue gun
-A lot of patience!

The cape

This and the second step are probably the hardest and most time consuming parts of the costume, as the rest you can pretty much just throw on with no fuss. I started with the cape part on her back, which is hidden in most of my photos, but really makes the costume that much more authentic. I bought a spare t-shirt for the fabric that was only about 3 pounds and cut it in half. From there, using reference to pictures of other Sailor Moon costumes and photos of her, I measured out a good chunk of square fabric to use as the cape. It’s not a long cape like Batman or Superman have. It goes to around the bottom of the armpits. I then hot glued it on the plain white t-shirt, making sure it was all even before I did that. Lack of resources, I did not have anything to sew it with, but I’m sure that would have been a lot easier. However, the hot glue stayed pretty well all night when I was out clubbing.

The collar

This was the hardest part from me. Using more of the spare fabric you have, I cut two even strips about the width of four fingers. I basically did the same thing I did with the cape and just made sure they were even. However, mine was a little off centered which drove me absolutley crazy, but you can hardly tell in the photos. But if you’re OCD like I am about this kind of stuff, make sure they are even and evenly centered as well! From there, I hot glued the fabric on to the collar of the white t-shirt and let it dry. I then took the bow I had and glued it in the middle of the collar I had just let dry. It adds the extra flare and really is the distinguishing feature of a Sailor Scout costume.

Pulling the odds and ends together

I had bought a couple blue jewels to add more pizzaz to my costume, and glued one to the middle of the bow and another to the middle of my golden headband. I also took the white gloves and used sharpie around the bottom to create the blue band you can see in the photo of her I attached. I would have used fabric, but it would have been too tight around my arms. However, it probably would have looked better – plus the sharpie kept rubbing off on the fingers of my gloves, as they were satin. As you can see, it’s a fairly simple costume and perfect for the short amount of time I had. Really the only part you need to do is the shirt. You can then just throw on the skirt along with it, stockings if you so wish and shoes of your choice. I found plain flats to look the best, but you could really use whatever would be most comfortable for you!

If you have any questions about the costume or comments, please feel free to leave a comment and I can try to get back to you! :)