How I did Kuriyama Mirai (Kyoukai no Kanata)'s Idol Costume

Mirai Kuriyama and Mitsuki Nase wore this idol like costume in episode 6 of Kyoukai no Kanata. The costume and dance have absolutely no relationship to the primary story but it was such a hilariou episode I found myself laughing at it for weeks xD!

In this blog entry I shall share with you how I made my Kuriyama Mirai's dance costume. To watch our Dance cover and Cosplay photographs, click the links below.


Yakusoku no Kizuna Dance Cover: Click!
Kyoukai no Kanata, Idol Costume photoshoot: Click!

Watch the original dance segment below!

 

 
Kuriyama Mirai cosplay by Kaika.

The Top & Puffy sleeves

The top was modified from a cheap polo t-shirt. It only cost me $4 and was bought from my neighbourhood Night Market , awesome xD! Because I modified from an existing top that is of a stretchy material , the top was one of the first thing I completed.

 

My t-shirt was a little short so I start by unpicking the allowance at the bottom hem.

 

 

The photo above shows the Polo t-shirt with the bottom hems unpicked. I’ve also done some markings on it with dressmaking chalk.

 

I start by cutting the sleeves away and marking out how much fabric to take away with my dressmaking chalk (the lines in white above). You can either measure your waist and bust length then mark out the measurements on the t-shirt. Or you can wear the t-shirt and manually pinch and pin the extra fabric away. I would recommend using dressmaking pins to pin along the lines first before cutting the excess away. This way you have the option of trying out the altered shirt before trimming the excess away , just to be careful.

 

After I got the bust & waist portion of the measurements down, I pin the front and back fabric together and cut the excess away.

I then stretch it out sideways like the photo above so I can draw the flower petal edges on the bottom.

I did a bit of intelligent mathematics (ok, not really LOL) and came to the conclusion that 9 petals looked the best for this costume. So that meant I need 5 petals on both sides and one of the petals will be divided between the front and the back fabric.

I then cut the bottom excess away. Because I am using a T-shirt material, that means I don’t need to bother with hemming or leaving allowance for hemming :D





Basically you end up with something like this.

Don’t sew the sides of the t-shirt together yet because we will need the front and back of the t-shirt to be separated to do the next few steps.

Let's move on to the sleeves.



 
This is the drafting of my sleeve.


I choose to make a simple puffy sleeve with gathers at the top centre for the poof. If you want to have “puffy-er” sleeves than I do, then allocate more fabric in the centre for the gathers. To prevent the fabric from fraying, I burnt the edges of my cloth. If you have a hemming machine, remember to hem the fabric before sewing them.


This blog entry have a tutorial on how to do gathers here. I feel like such a noob because I always just manually bunch up my fabric and sew a straight stitch through 8D Either that or I just my Ruffle & Gathering Foot. Yes I know, I’m so unprofessional 8D





You can choose to sew the white bias on to the sleeves before sewing the sleeves onto the black t-shirt. Or you can sew the sleeves onto the black t-shirt first then sew the white bias on.


I’m sorry the above photo doesn’t have the white bias yet. But notice how the sides of the black t-shirt is still un-sewed. It has to be so because we need to sew the red bias tape next.

 

With the help of masking tapes, I gently secure the red bias tape onto the black t-shirt and sew the red bias down slowly. Of course, we do each side individually, one by one.

In this photo, you see the right (your left) red bias already sewed onto the t-shirt.

Be careful not to sew the bias onto the neck opening otherwise, your head will not be able to go through.




For the tape around the collar opening area, sew only on the outer side of the bias tape and leave the middle open. Basically what you’re doing here is just sewing the red bias along side the polo tee’s original collar opening. I hope you understand what I mean!





This is probably the EASIEST way to make this top. Though the downside of this method is the fact that the red bias tape around the collar opening tends to ‘open up’ when it is worn. Look at the photo above to understand what I mean. I tried to stick the flapping red bias tape down with double sided tape but it didn’t work very well hahaha.


Now you can sew up the sides of the black t-shirt and add elastic to your puffy sleeves. No photos for this part, I’m sorry!


The next to tackle is the white collar.





Carefully cut the collar away from the T-shirt then use it as a pattern reference for your white collar. To make it easy to wear the top, I choose to make my collar out of stretchy material.





The collar is 2 layers of fabric sewed together at 3 corners then turned inside out. In the above photo, the collar have already been turned inside out, that’s why you don’t see any stitch line. Mirai’s collar actually have red edges and I ought to sew red bias tape around the 3 corners. But I was running behind time and frankly couldn’t be bothered anymore. I did eventually sewed it on after I was done with the entire top however, the WIP photos does not reflect that.


Make sure you leave enough allowance on the 4th corner so you can sew the white collar onto your black t-shirt and this is the finished product.

 

The Puffy Skirt

The skirt was such a horror to make and I knew it would be from the beginning. Which is why I really didn't want to do it the original way but Chiiyo wanted to be accurate and so we both tried very hard T-T


 

The skirt is basically a wide A-line skirt.


The seam lines we see in Mirai's skirt are small gathering of fabric that is sewed together like darts. Here is a photo of my skirt before sewing. The orange lines with green ‘X’ are where the "Darts" will be sewed. Remember to leave at least 1 inch of extra allowance at the sides to sew the zip!

 

 

How the skirt looks like after I sewed all the darts. What’s next is simply to add the zip and close up all the seams. You can also add a skirt band on top if you like but I honestly couldn't be bothered with something that cannot be seen.

 



The finished skirt with cancan underneath.

 
I made another White A-line skirt with lace trimmings to be worn underneath this pink skirt. The basic pattern of the white skirt is pretty much the same as above except that no darts was required.

 
I then manually gathered the folds at the bottom of the pink skirt, hand sewed them down and sewed a gold button on top. It was SO HARD to get the bottom gathers to look decent -__-;

Shoes

 
I got lazy and just made a sock cover. To learn how to do it, click here for my previous tutorial.



Mirai's shoes have a white flap at the top.





Here’s a look at how I came up with the template. I made a paper draft and stuck it to my socks to gauge the size and fit of the flab.

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The paper draft is on top of the white stretchy fabric. I made the flap out of a stretchy cloth so it can expand along with the socks for easy wearing.


Draft and cut 4 of such fabrics. Remember to leave allowance by the side for sewing. Stack 2 piece of the fabric on top of each other then sew them together along the green dashed lines, leave the blue dashed side open.





The 2 fabric flap sewed and turned inside out. Like our collar, you only have to sew 3 sides of the flap, leave the 4th side open as that will be sewed to the socks.





Start by pinning the white flap to the opening of the sock to get an idea of how high it should be. I put the ends of the flap inside the sock so as to give it a more authentic look. I then hand stitched the white flap to the red socks.




Slip them onto your shoe and you’re done!

Gloves

I modified my gloves from a pair of elbow length gloves. Bought them for $12 at my local dressmaking material shop near Textile Centre.


I start by first wearing the gloves and deciding how long I want them to be. Took the gloves out and then turn the ends (the side your hand goes in from) inside out like the photo below.





Then I draw the zigzag edges I wanted on the gloves with my tailor chalk. Make sure the front zigzag connects smoothly to the back.

Pin everything in place and sew along the zig zag lines, then cut the excess fabric off. Take care NOT to sew the front and back side of the gloves together, otherwise your hand won't be able to go in!! We're just trying to sew the outer piece of the glove to the palm portion of the glove and have a beautiful edge.



 

What's left is simply to turn the fabric in and iron the zigzag edges down.

 

Hair Accessory

The hair accessory had a bow and a white fur patch.


We couldn't find fur so Chiiyo improvised with white feather boa. She basically laid the boa on a white felt , made sure they look as full and fluffy as possible then hand sewed the boa onto the white felt. I hot glued the fur patch and bow onto a hair clip.
 

Ribbons

There's nothing unique about her collar bow. You can learn how to make bows by checking out this previous tutorial of mine.

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I hope you guys found this tutorial entry helpful. Remember to leave me a comment and tell me what you think! Also please continue to subscribe, like and share!