MIMA KIRIGOE
Perfect Blue
Photographer
Why I chose to make this costume:
Despite having known about Perfect Blue for a decade, I had never watched the movie until this winter O_o. Shameful, I know!
That being said, I loved the story and the character of Mima, so for Anime South, I made her stage outfit from the Cham performance.
How I made this costume:
This costume came together easily enough, but I had a hard time at first deciding what color scheme to go with. In some scenes, the dress looks light pink with hot pink layers, but that would have been way too pink, even for me O_O. Instead I went with the promotional pictures and made the costume white and pink with hot pink bows/red shoes. The top of the dress is boned and tailored to me and I hand-gathered the layers to ensure they ruffled evenly and as per reference. Instead of making the garters out of the same fabric as the dress, I opted for lace to give it more a lingerie look. The wig was interesting, as Mima's hair is so choppy in the movie. I ended up cutting and styling the hell out of a random black layered wig I found locally. I already owned the shoes, gloves and thigh highs. I got lucky and found a $5 microphone which got cut up and repainted for Mima.
Thoughts on this costume:
This turned out to be such a fluffy ballerina-esque costume! I felt very girly in it lol.
I asked Brian to do studio photos of Mima surrounded by a mountain of stuffed animals—kind of like a "Cham promo shoot." I thought the idea was cute and appropriate to the character.
Taking photos on the beach was a lot of fun, too—Evali did such a great job capturing "Mima on stage" and the movie's feel in these photos. It was surprising how many people at a relatively new convention still recognized me, so I look forward to wearing this at another show in the future. Gotta see how many Perfect Blue fans are out there!
