Star Trek Costumes!

Here we are as Deanna Troi and Lwaxana Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Several of these photos were taken by the awesome official CONvergence photographer, Catherine Of The Sea. Her con albums are here and here. 

I'll go over my Lwaxana costume first since it was more complicated. I didn't want to put a huge budget into this so I didn't bother trying to copy any of her dresses exactly or make it screen accurate at all. Just something feasibly Lwaxana-ish! 

I was inspired by the bodice with neckline cutout on this one:

 And the column shape with silver contrast seen here:

If you haven't already checked out the hilarious and wonderful Fashion It So, do it now! I found a lot of research images there.

So I started with this cheesy prom dress from Goodwill.

It had a weird back lacing detail that I undid.

I had some silver metallic knit that I threw over the dressform and played with.

I did not notice until after it was done that I made my cutout mirror image from the show! Ah, well.

I wore the thrifted dress unaltered. I used a basic fitted T-shirt pattern for the silver top. At first I went WAY overboard on the cutout! So I had to re-cut the front. I edged the cutout with metallic trim and held the small front point in place with a brooch.

The hair was a project of its own! Lwaxana has a lot of different hair looks, but they all involve unruly curls. I started with this wavy hair extension on a clip. Again, this project was on the cheap, so while a full wig might have been better, I already had this in a drawer.

I removed the clip and the elastic, and rolled it in rollers. 

I dipped it in boiling water for about 3-4 seconds, then let it cool. I pinned it on a styro head to dry.

When it dried I let the rollers out.

And spent a long time messing up the curls.

To wear it I pinned up all my hair in the loosest, softest braid bun I could. 

Plopped the curls on top!

And pinned as needed to keep in place!

I added gold eyeshadow, as much lipstick and blush as I could make stick, and some glitzy earrings. Done!

I could have gone WAY more intense on the rhinestones and glam, but I think this conveyed the general impression. 

I was honestly a bit afraid to go to the con wearing this, because of its total non-screen-accuracy and absolute crappiness. But I had SO MUCH FUN wearing this costume. I loved playing in character as Lwaxana. I spoke in character to every Star Trek TNG person I saw. Only a few really got it and played along. And only ONE person came up to me and said they recognized my costume. And they even said "Nobody ever cosplays Lwaxana!" But having even one person know who I was supposed to be made it worthwhile.

Okay, onto little Deanna!

Of all Deanna's looks, my daughter liked this one best.

In this photo it looks much more grey. Or is this a different costume in the same design?

Either way, I talked her into grey because we just couldn't find anything in that icky mauve.

To make the pattern, I traced a pair of leggings that fit her, then traced a fitted T-shirt pattern, adding CF and CB seams and cutting it off at the leggings' waist. I shaped the neckline into a deep V and measured it for the contrast band. Then I just taped my traced patterns together!

There's no closure; to get it on she just stepped in through the neck. This was a little awkward, but the neckline is big enough (and stretchy enough!) that it worked.

I made a headband from the same purple contrast as the neckband, with some of the silver metallic trim I used on my Lwaxana outfit. The back has a bit of elastic and I used the hook side of a piece of Velcro on the underside to make it stick to her hair. A high pony with her natural waves was the hairdo.

The communicator badge was a project in itself. You can read more about it here (with tutorial!).

I had a ton of fun with my little one!