Homura Akemi (School Uniform) - Madoka Magica



Cost: $12
Time to Make: 8 hours
Timeline of Construction: July 2022



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There isn't a ton to say about this costume as this is really just an excuse to get more wear out of my Madoka Magica school uniform that I made back in 2017. Pretty much as soon as I had made the costume to portray Madoka, I figured it would be fun to Cosplay at least one of the other main characters from the series. Homura is my second favourite and after making her magical girl costume, it seemed like a natural fit to also portray her in the school uniform. After all, I already had a wig and headband for the costume and all I really needed was a couple more accessory pieces to complete the look for the character.

I wrote that this costume cost $12 and I think that pretty much covers buying a prop ring from Aliexpress and a pair of black tights. Everything else I already had. I brought out my Kyubey plush that I've loved posing with for Madoka, a purple soul gem prop I have (which is actually a water globe, but it works) and my red Homura glasses.

The next question was what wig to wear. I do have a black pigtail wig that would match innocent Homura that I got years ago from Arda for Saki from Onechanbara. I found it to be really uncomfortable and I need to cut the bangs on it, so I decided just to go with my standard wig that I wore with her magical girl costume. It's a bit fried from age, but still does the job.

I actually needed to do quite a bit of work on my school uniform so I could wear it again. The white and beige fabrics for the blouse had developed some weird age stains that I couldn't just spot treat. Spot treating it would just move the stain around and expand it. The problem was the red bias tape on the hem of the blouse and on the cuffs bleeds dye if it gets wet. When attempting to clean the blouse, I accidentally wet some of the bias tape at the front of the blouse and it bled red into the lace underneath the hem. I had to cut off pretty much the whole length of white lace at the front to replace since the dye was too tough to get out.

In the end, I decided not to be lazy and I removed all the red bias tape at the bottom of the hem of the blouse so I could wash the blouse. I didn't remove the cuffs, though. I tried to wash the shirt with them pulled out, but I still ended up getting them a bit wet and I had to try to remove some dye from the cuffs (which also didn't really work. In the end, I had to use white fabric paint to cover it as best I could). I was able to really brighten up the white collar with washing, which was great. It had some makeup stains on it as well that came out. I also repaired both zipper seams because the thread was pulling out and I re-sewed the black bias tape around the collar as it previously had been hand sewn by my mom, but the stitching was now coming off. I also opened up the sleeve seams a little bit as they were quite tight on my shoulders and elbows. I'm grateful I left some seam allowance, but I do wish I had even more. The fabric was a bit scratchy from how tight it was on my elbows.

The final annoying task was to re-sew on the red bias tape, which this time I did with my machine (previously I had hand sewn it on) and re-attach the lace. I still had leftover lace, thank goodness, since originally Pan and I were going to make school uniforms together. Pan never did make hers so I still have an extra length of lace. I cut a new piece to fill the hole at the front of the blouse and hand sewed the lace in place. It was tough to get it to lay flat right at the middle of the front of the blouse where the points met. That took some trial and error and cutting bits of extra lace where the two sides meet to make the angle work. In the end, I'm happy with how it all blended together. It was almost like I made a whole new costume with all the work I had to do to make the costume wearable again!

I had fun portraying Homura again and getting another excuse to wear my Madoka Magica school uniform. Even years later, I adore the way the school uniforms looked in that series. This is still one of the costumes I'm the most proud of making and Cosplaying as Homura was a nice change. This time I had to be a bit stoic instead of being happy go lucky, which was interesting. I always felt for Homura with all the sacrifices she made to save Madoka. Hopefully, thanks to all my efforts to fix the costume, I can squeeze more wears out of my Madoka school uniform to portray both Homura and Madoka again in the future.

Events/Conventions this costume was worn to
Pretty Heroes 2022 (Sunday)

Photo Credits
Pan & Stillvisions


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