Namor

When Irvin watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, he immediately glommed onto Namor as a perfect character for the Mermaid Parade, checking all the boxes: water-themed, scantily clad, and relevant in pop culture.

The costume is quite involved, because of the sheer number of bits and bobs that Namor wears as ornamentation.  Irvin’s first strategy was to order a ready-made costume online, which didn’t come in time.  He then began ordering certain pieces online separately… which also fell victim to shipping snafus.  So as of twenty-four hours before the parade, Irvin had essentially nothing and had to craft the costume from scratch.

The most important part was, of course, the green shorts, since that’s the only clothing Namor is wearing – those were found at H&M after a very diligent perusal.  For the rest, Irvin scoured two costume stores and two trimmings stores for anything that could work, and then stayed up into the night sewing and hot gluing for all he’s worth.  

The greaves came from repurposed bands of Greek armor, whereas the arm bands were from Egyptian costume pieces.  Irvin had wings handy from his Percy Jackson costume.  The shoulder piece was also a repurposed Egyptian collar, with a few extra decorative pieces glued on – and that ensured that Irvin still got an interestingly patterned sunburn during the parade!  The necklaces and pearls at the top of the collar Irvin already had lying around.  The belt was very tricky: Irvin made that by combining a trimming and a decal, and then fastened it with velcro and safety pins.  The wrist bands were also trimming and safety pins.

The elf ears were readily available at a costume store, but the earrings very nearly did not come in time.  Irvin spent considerable effort finding buttons and gems that, when glued to an earring clip, could approximate Namor's earrings.  But in an overdue stroke of good fortune, the earrings and nosering arrived from Etsy mere minutes before Irvin departed.  This was especially fortunate in the case of the nosering, which Irvin had no hope of approximating, and which proved the most uncomfortable and unwieldy part of the costume - any chance that Irvin would pierce his nose vanished for good after a day in this cosplay.

It was all worth it in the end, since the costume proved to both look good and be remarkably comfortable (aside from the nosering).  Many people recognized Namor, and those that didn't tended to assume it was meant to be an aquatically-themed Spock.  But the best part was when a little boy ran up to Irvin and gave him his spear so they could pose for a photo together, and Irvin's heart grew two sizes.  And when Irvin and his friends did a photo shoot on the beach after the Mermaid Parade, it looked suitably epic to have Namor in his native element!

After all the hard work, Irvin decided Namor would be the one costume he would reprise at AwesomeCon the following year, rather than crafting something new.  It was a superhero themed costume, which wouldn't have many (or any) other cosplayers, and was comfortable - it checked a lot of boxes for Day 3 cosplay at a convention!  Particularly after spending the prior day in warm layers and stiletto heels, biker shorts and bangles seemed like a very good idea.  (It was a mostly good idea, only because of how cold it was - Irvin brought a cost in a rare moment of foresight, but not pants, and those biker shorts were not warm!)

The ironic part was that all those Namor costume pieces that failed to arrive in time for the Mermaid Parade did, in fact, end up arriving in the subsequent days.  So Irvin went from not having enough bits and bobs for Namor's accessories to having a cornucopia of them.  Irvin elected to use the ready-made armor and belt instead of his home-made version, but after trying on the green shorts (which were very short, even by Irvin's immodest standards), he went with the tried-and-true H&M shorts.

Namor ended up being a big hit among the AwesomeCon crowd, who recognized the character much more readily than the spectators at Coney Island.  And Irvin took advantage of some dramatic lighting for a photo shoot that came out really cool.  The only unfortunate bit was that there weren't any other Wakanda Forever cosplayers for Irvin to get pictures with; he'd had hopes there would be at this venue!