I started out on this whole James Brown costume thing thinking, “How difficult could it be?” This is the costume I was hoping to recreate.
After watching my grandmother sew the pants I thought, “That looks pretty fucking easy.” But then the jacket started.
The mens jacket may be one of the most complicated things I’ve ever seen put together. There are a billion things to check and recheck. The collar, which I thought would probably be super easy to make, is apparently super fucking difficult.
Getting the sleeves straight and not crooked, getting the right fit, it’s fucking crazy. It fits together like a puzzle but my grandma was navigating it with ease. It looked pretty intimidating.
Grandma at the sewing machine
Honestly I think if my grandma hadn’t sewn it it would have taken me at least a month to get right. The jacket looked pretty good after it was done. The sleeves weren’t exactly straight, but I wasn’t about to ask my grandma to go back to the sewing machine. It was good enough for Halloween purposes.
So then I take it home and start on the rhinestone gluing. Surprisingly, breathing in hot glue fumes over the span of hours is NOT an enjoyable experience. Hot glue doesn’t burn very much when it gets on your fingers, it just burns. I got to experience that over and over.
Also rhinestones don’t like to stay on unless you use the right amount of glue, which means a lot. Fortunately the $9.99 CVS glue gun I purchased had no control whatsoever over the flow of glue, which was helpful. It had a steep learning curve.
After about an hour I got on the curve. The rhinestoning took about an 5 hours, and I wasn’t even close to finished but my costume looked fucking cool. With my wig on I looked like a cross between Super Mario/Inigo Montoya/James Brown.
My Name is Inigo Brown
What do I look like to you? Well that was my first embarkation on sewing wherein I didn’t touch the sewing machine once. While in Korea I am hoping to pick up some patterns and maybe some fabric, might be an interesting place to do that. I’ll be posting about my Korea trip at www.ilivewithmom.com
4 Comments
you’re Halloween was perfect.
My Name is Inigo Brown
You killed my Godfather of Soul
Prepare to POW?
My Halloween was perfect. First one in recent memory where I didn’t get trashed or touch a drop of alcohol. I handed out candy to the the kiddies and watched scary movies…that was actually a good time.
Nice work, dude. Look how sweaty your hair is, yo, shiny.