Category: trends

MY DIY Halloween Get Up: Katana from Suicide Squad!

~ Emmie Reve ~ 2 Comments

This summer when Suicide Squad came out, it crossed over into the Batman universe with characters like Harley Quin and the Joker. The premise of the film was super villains joining forces to complete a mission that could save the world…sounds more pulled together than the film’s execution of the story…but visually it was still a treat.

I am not really into super heroes that much…but the year before I did a simple Tomie costume, a character from a manga series by Junji Ito…so I couldn’t resist making another Japanese inspired costume when I found out there was a Japanese hero in Suicide Squad: Katana!  Forget Harley Quin, one of the most done of female costumes of this year, but the character of Katana; a deadly and strong willed woman of honor who has superior samurai skills was the way to go for me.

Suicide Squad looked great visually, and the costumes had a street vibe interpretation!
Suicide Squad looked great visually, and the costumes had a street vibe interpretation!
Karen fukuhara, an new unknown actress took over the role well.
Karen fukuhara, an new unknown actress took over the role well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The back story on Katana is is that she was originally the daughter of a great samurai, who while being trained in the skills of fighting, also won the hearts of two brothers.  They both sought her out, and in the end, she chose the more honest man to marry and have kids with…leaving the rejected brother to be jealous and turn even more evil. There was a dual between the brothers and Katana’s husband was killed by his evil brother, and the children died in the resulting fire.  After she lost her husband and kids, Katana became a force for good, using her magic sword (who still possesses her husband’s soul) to fight evil as a means to cope with her tragic loss.  Katana has worked with Batman, Birds of Prey  and for the movie Suicide Squad she was Rick Flag’s body guard.  Anyways, enough about her back story, let’s take a look at my costume.

This is my take on Katana from Suicide Squad. Am I menacing?
This is my take on Katana from Suicide Squad. Am I menacing?

I made this costume mostly with clothes I already had.  Such as a white tank/top, tight black jeans/pants and a black bomber style jacket. I pinned it in on the bottom to create a cropped effect.  I also already had the sword from a previous costume (Kyo from Black Bird) The only thing I actually bought was the white half mask, the red sash, and gold metallic paint for the flowers.  I painted the red dot on the mask with red nail polish and reshaped and cut the eyes to resemble Katana’s mask more.  Then I painted gold petal shapes on duct tape and then cut them out and stuck them in a flower pattern in the bottom right corner of the jacket. Then I looped the long red scarf around the arms of the jacket and pinned in place.  All in all, this costume only cost me $10 for the scarf, paint, and plain white mask! I had everything else!  But it was really fun getting to be Katana for a day on Halloween.

What DIY costumes have you made in the past that was both cheap and made use of things you had?

 

Graphic liquid Liner…can basic black be replaced by grey for everyday?

~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment
An inky black marker type liquid liner, verses a brush on liquid grey liner...
An inky black marker type liquid liner, versus a brush on liquid grey liner…

There is no make-up look I’ve seen more worn by women than that of the ubiquitous “cat eye” makeup.  It is usually done in a combination of ways, but always involves liquid liner to produce that hard edge top eyelid line that defines a graphic “cat eye” make-up.  And with a flick up in the corner, any girl can instantly get daily glam without feeling too made up.  When buying liquid liner, by default I always go to black, for some reason and I get it in pen style for ease of use.  Liquid liners with a brush and a bottle go on too black and thick for me and for some reason and I end up looking too hard, but pens can still be really harsh if they are very dark…like the one I use now. My eyes are like daggers lined by black ink.  I accept that black is the fashion… But  I recently discovered that charcoal grey is a great alternative, if you like the polished elegance of the cat-eye, want to still be in vogue, but don’t want to look as stern with super black lined graphic eyes.

So the left photo is black liner and the right photo is grey liner. All other make-ups are the same. Can you spot the difference?
So the left photo is black liner and the right photo is grey liner. All other make-ups are the same. Can you spot the difference?

So as you can see with my photos, there is a only subtle difference between black and grey.  But you can see how grey liner is a lot softer, and gentler, it opens up my eyes a bit more and still is a cat eye make-up.  In the black liner photo, I used all the same make-ups as the grey liner photo, but with black, you can see how my eyes are more emphasized and I look harder and edgier.

So which do you prefer?  Hard edgy black, or sweetly composed grey?  These days I’ve been going for charcoal grey liner since I find that sometimes, less darkness on the face can actually be appealing, and maybe even more youthful.  Try it out and let me know what you think.  Make-up and being a girl is all about the details and small things!

Are glasses as cool and cute as fringe fashion trends say?

~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment
I don't watch New Girl with Zoey Deschanel, but well, we can't talk about the glasses trend with out seeing her adorkable ways!
I don’t watch New Girl with Zoey Deschanel, but well, we can’t talk about the glasses trend with out seeing her adorkable ways!

When I worked at this designer/hipster store in Toronto a few years ago, I really saw the trend for wearing glasses go up.  It was a way to look cool, smart and cute, and it completed a fashion look.  Girls were all wearing big glasses with dark rims to look cute in an fringe way, but I was always left out of this trend since I have perfect vision.  Yes, by default, I never had glasses growing up or anytime because I didn’t need them.  I was not achieving my lack of eye apparel look by wearing contacts either as some people assumed. The truth was the only glasses I could ever wear were non-prescription “fake” ones that didn’t come out until recent years.

Rewind even further back in time to my art college years, when I was quite shy and not very confident.  I worried sometimes about how I would be perceived by classmates.  I even contemplated then, before glasses were in,  to wear fake glasses to help me to look “smarter” among my peers.  So now that the fashion trends have given their permission to wear fake glasses, I have recently bought a pair of optical quality non-prescription glasses, they are scratch resistant and uv protecting. And well, I kinda like them.  I really have to get used to wearing them though. I have been naked faced all of my years!

So, these are not really the black rimmed glasses I saw everyone wearing a while back, but I kinda like their boldness and colour. (:
So, these are not really the black rimmed glasses I saw everyone wearing a while back, but I kinda like their boldness and colour. (:

I read somewhere that eyeglass wearers always get protection from glare and uv  because they wear their prescription everyday for vision.  Us visually perfect people never get that kind of protection on an ongoing basis.  We get all the rain, wind, snow and sun in our eyes, and the full glare of our computer screens.  So o ther than glasses giving a fashion boost and vision correction, might they also give a health advantage too?  That’s not fair to those of us that face the harsh world with an unprotected naked eye day in and day out!

Glasses are seen as cool, but on the other hand, I also think back about how that is not always the case.  Most gorgeous gals in mainstream movies/music today and in the past don’t wear vision corrective apparatuses. I think technically, not wearing glasses is still seen as the norm when describing a good looking person.  But still, it is nice for me to see the success of hip and happening fashionistas that are just cool enough to pull off the glasses look and propel a trend that has fringe beauty appeal.  And with fashion’s green light, I can now participate too with my fake eye glasses on days that I feel like it!

What do you think?  Do you like the look of glasses? Are they fashionable? Or would you rock no glasses/contacts any day?