Theresa

As with all cosplays, an idea has to come from somewhere. This one began when I found a red dress in the back of my wardrobe which instantly reminded me of Theresa from Fable 2. I am aware that it’s a bit of a jump of the imagination… but that’s exactly how my brain works and seeing as it’s one of my favourite games of all time, once I had seen it… I couldn’t unsee it.

After some more searching in my cupboards, through local charity shops and the haberdashery, I had found…

Matching red fabric (in the shape of a second dress), rough cream fabric (in the shape of a skirt), smooth cream fabric, a short-sleeved cream cardigan, beige scarf, suitable boots and some thin bendy dress boning.

If you are having trouble figuring out a cosplay’s layering, I suggest give it a quick doodle, it has helped me deconstruct a cosplay into its key elements which is useful when you are starting something new.

The main dress itself was a relatively simple job of reshaping the neckline and adding the cream edge and centre detail. Then cutting the scarf to create a tasselled bottom edge which was sewn on. The important thing to look out for here is a T-shirt type fabric; it doesn’t fray much, so worked perfectly.

The cardigan needed to have a red edge added at the back, which was nicely supplied by the second red dress. Luckily the main dress had long enough sleeves to be able to tuck around the cardigan sleeve to create the red cuffs. The lower arm cuffs were cut off the second dress, and I added a section of the scarf for the beige part, again the fabric worked well here because it offered some stretch.

It just so happened the cream skirt was sewn initially in sections, and I was able to use these for the wrapped layers around Theresa’s waist only by cutting along the section lines. I decided that some of these didn’t even require sewing to give the rough effect. Keeping things super simple they are also just safety pinned together which holds them in place.

The hood used another section of the second dress; the bottom edge offered a pre-sewn line that I could thread the dress boning through to create the wide hood opening. I added some smooth cream fabric to the centre of the hood, making sure not to sew closed the tube the boning was going to be fed through. To help the hood stay a little more rigid at the top, I used some thin plastic slid between the cream and red fabric. Some left-over scarf scraps were also added for the wrapped detail.

It took a little while to find the finishing touches. I dismantled a necklace, and with the help of some leather string, I created the three necklaces. The hood charms were also from a necklace which I repurposed. Plus I found some bangles, which were a random set from various charity shops but worked well enough together.

By no means was it the best job I could have done, but given the time I had and materials on hand, I was, and still am, really proud of what I created.