You know what I made for Hallowe’en

K-Pop Demon Hunters hit our family’s world last summer like a smoke bomb, pleasantly distracting from the many anxieties of reality in 2025. And, remarkably, it even diverted the twins from their unshakable devotion to the Frozen franchise.

All of a sudden I was ordering birthday decorations online and playing “This is what it sounds like” and “Free” at bedtime. And the twins conned Tyo into dying their hair pink and purple for the first day of Grade 1 this fall.

And, inevitably, planning Hallowe’en costumes.

Very quickly the twins sorted out who they identified most with—Rumi and Mira. And River, in particular, has the soul of a true cosplayer—an obsessive attention to detail. She wants her costume to be as screen accurate as we can make it. This is a bit unfortunate since, y’know, we live in Canada (not one of the warm parts), and Hallowe’en is unfortunately at the end of October.

Even with the modifications we have carefully negotiated, they’re going to be freezing.

I really have a love-hate relationship with Hallowe’en costumes. On the one hand they’re wildly fun and challenging. On the other hand they’re a buttload of work for a one-day payoff and time I could be spending making things that are a lot more practical.

But on the third hand Syo (who is now 22) has actually been wearing elements of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies costume I made her in 2016, so I guess they aren’t always a waste of effort. And I’ve gone six years without making the twins an elaborate one (just the cute little bat capes when they were two. Oh and the mushroom princess capes, too. But even that was three years ago), so perhaps they’re due.

The first struggle was deciding which of the various outfits featured in the movie they wanted. But at a certain point I noticed they were using their black faux-leather motorcycle-style jackets when playing “K-pop concert”, so I told them I could make the rest of the costume if those could be the jackets. They (especially River) were not super keen since they’re not, y’know, cropped and covered in sequins, but in the end they acquiesced. So we were settled on the Golden costumes. Arguably the most iconic of their looks, so it worked out, except for the part where there are SO MANY DETAILS.

The Base Costumes

For the rest of the costume bases I turned to old, reliable Jalie patterns. Not least because I already had leotard (Jalie 3349) and leggings (Jalie 2920) patterns traced out in the twins’ size. I also traced out a little pair of Clara shorts (Jalie 3887) as the base for Rumi’s shorts and the shorts under Mira’s skirt.

I dug through the stash (deeper than I have in a long time) to locate appropriate, faintly glittery black and white spandex, and vaguely-skin-tone-adjacent cotton Lycra. The twins were not super happy that neither the black spandex nor the black pleather jackets were sequin-encrusted, but they survived.

I also used Sculpey for the first time ever, as well as strategic amounts of wire, to create some of the “hard” embellishments. I am not much of a sculptor, and it shows, but it was fun to try something new. The experiments with hot glue were a little less successful, but we’ll get to that.

From the cotton-Lycra I made a plain leotard for Rumi and leggings for both of them. I assured River that we could paint patterns on hers, since she was quite unhappy about how not-actually-the-colour-of-her-skin it was. We almost got those done.

For Rumi, I took the leotard body pattern as a base and modified it to have a cut-on turtleneck and front zipper. However, I made it fairly wide since some kids (cough Syo cough) are sensitive to the tight sensation around their necks and I didn’t know how River would react. Turns out River is much more sensitive to screen accuracy, so she’s not very happy with how that fits. I hand-sewed the gold elastic cord around the edges. A zigzag on the machine might have worked just as well, but hindsight, y’know.

For the shorts, I appliquéd some black stripes along the side and used some pre-cut black binding to make piping along the yoke (I should only have done it between the yoke and shorts portion, not along the top, however.)

For Mira, I modified the leotard pattern to have the top half black, like Mira’s top, and made up a skirt pattern. It wound up being too small and not flared enough, so I ended up adding a flared panel on the non-slit side. The hardest part was getting a good angle for the open slit on the one side. (Considering that Mira’s hip has a very different angle from Tris’s.) For the black stripes I fused Steam-a-Seam to some of the black spandex and cut strips to width, then fused them in place. You can’t see them in the picture above, but I built in black shorts underneath the skirt.

I zig-zagged down various bits of gold elastic (man, that random dollar store purchase back in the summer really punched above its weight class in this project) to make some of the designs on the front of Mira’s top. I didn’t succeed in finding or making a trim that would give that leaf-effect, so I just stitched down some strips of gold stretch vinyl.

Mira’s belt

I had a bunch of scraps of heavy-duty black vinyl that came in handy quite a bit. One was for Mira’s very structural belt. I (we) struggled quite a bit with this piece. I didn’t really want to stitch through the heavy vinyl at the edges to sew down the belt and it wasn’t possible to sew it inside out and turn it. I opted to glue down the folded edges on the inside, and then glue down a slightly narrower inner layer to cover that. However, the glue I had wasn’t the tacky kind that would actually hold while it was wet, so just getting the basic belt into shape took several days of gluing, weighting, and regluing bits that didn’t turn out right.

That gold elastic was perfect again for making the gold stripe and little loopies, but for the first round I asked Tyo to just hot-glue it on since I wasn’t sure about sewing through that many layers of vinyl and glue. This worked, give or take some gloopies Tyo was not at all happy about, but wound up peeling off almost perfectly while Tris was wearing the belt at school, so I had to madly throw my size 18 denim needle onto the machine and redo the gold cording with a zigzag to stitch it down. Had to restitch the Velcro closure too, and the funny gold swag piece at the bottom point.

In the end I prefer the look and it’s much sturdier, but note to self. Hot glue and vinyl are not a good combo.

Rumi’s belt

I had a hard time figuring out how exactly Rumi’s belt should come together, and then how to best represent that with the materials I had at hand. It looks like a softer strap is woven through some kind of rectangular metallic links along the front part. After a few not-so-effective experiments, I settled on making the belt itself by covering some vintage belt strapping I had in stash with the light gold stretch vinyl, and then making the “links” part out of my heavy black vinyl and painting that gold.

It’s not perfect but I think the impression is close? Add in some chain and the little waist bobble made from a bit of keychain, wire, and some of the gold sequin fringe I got for Mira’s epaulettes. (Which is far too long but we ran out of time to shorten it.)

Mira’s necklace

Unlike many elements of this costume that took for-freaking-ever to come together, Mira’s cute choker necklace was quite quick and satisfying at the end of the last day I had for making. Well, except for the diamond bauble that I made with sculpey and wire several days earlier and painted.

I used more of the black spandex, sewn into a tube and turned, and then zig-zagged down the elastic. For whatever reason the fabric wound up more stretched out on one side than the other, giving it a nice curve that is perfect for fitting around a neck. I added a little Velcro closure, tacked on the bauble and the little swags (more elastic cord)… and it was just about an inch too small. So, I added a little extension of Velcro at the back, which ended up being kind of scratchy and I’ll have to do something better in the future, but I’m still calling it a win.

Mira’s epaulettes

A big part of the look for both these costumes is the shoulder gear. I was initially tempted to venture into the world of foam for these, but that would’ve involved even more experimentation, so I settled for sewn versions. For Mira’s I layered the same white spandex over some scrap white bedsheet for the outer part (or the gold vinyl for the inner part), and quilted together layers of black liner, batting, and hair canvas for rigidity. This worked well enough, and the gold stretch vinyl was perfect for binding the curved edges. We found the sequin fringe at Michael’s, of all places, and while I originally meant to cut it up to make individual little tassels as per screen accuracy, that just wasn’t quite happening, so it got sewn on as is. .

My one regret (just a bit) is the dome studs. I really would’ve liked actual studs, or even buttons to sew on, but I didn’t have any in stash and didn’t manage to acquire them in the extremely limited time I had for acquiring supplies. So I wound up sculpting half-domes from Sculpey (using a play-dough mold, so they actually have little smiley faces on them), and Tyo spray-painted them for me, and hot-glued them in place. Which has worked so far, anyway.

To hold the epaulettes in place, I used non-roll elastic to make straps under the arms and connecting the two epaulettes across the back. Then just tacked the epaulettes in place at the shoulders of the jacket. 🧥

Rumi’s shoulder pieces

Ok, so I won’t lie, I’m pretty freaking chuffed about what I pulled off here. Rumi’s shoulder pieces consist of a pauldron on the one side, and a tangle of chains on the other, as well as a flowered decoration at the shoulder point that in the movie seems to be part of the jacket itself.

I started with the pauldron, drawing on my experience from Mira’s. Instead of a cloth lining and hair canvas, I used more of that heavy black vinyl which gave a nice amount of shape and support. I struggled quite a bit with the best way to do the design on the outside. I was considering painting, and appliqué. I couldn’t get a great handle on the nature of the design itself (I actually didn’t find the screenshot above until after it was done) so I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out what to do.

And then, in a flash of inspiration, I realized I could get a similar impression, if not complete accuracy, if I used the same kind of free-motion quilting motifs I used years ago to make my quilted skirt. I’m not a good free-motion-quilter, but that one pattern I can do. I layered up my gold vinyl, some scrap fleece for batting, and a bit of scrap bedsheet for the bottom layer, and started quilting. And I love the result so much I really want to make something similar for myself. Quilted gold corset?

For the other side, I started with the shoulder flower.

I made it using more of that heavy black vinyl, playing around with two pieces until I got them to meet at something like the right angle. I had originally hoped to bind the edge with the gold vinyl but that was not going to happen, so the whole thing is painted. The wide gold strap is a tube of the gold vinyl with a puffy gold star trim glued on. (Which is not screen accurate and yes River was not happy about that.).

It took a fair bit of playing around and looking at various pictures to figure out how to connect and anchor all the chains and I wouldn’t swear that it’s perfect, but in the end I think it worked well enough. I think I used about 4 yards of chain on the jacket alone, and it’s not a light chain.

I also sculpted the central flower ornament on the little cross straps that close Rumi’s jacket. We just pinned these in, and they aren’t terribly visible since the jackets we used have a lot more front coverage than the originals, but it’s my favourite of my various sculpting attempts on this project so I wanted to show it off.

The Hair

We already did pink and purple hair dye for the twins’ birthday back in the summer, so redoing that for their school day versions of the costumes was a no-brainer, but it obviously wasn’t going to fly for the night of.

Initially I THOUGHT it would be a good idea to use yarn for Rumi’s prodigious braid. I thought it would be lighter, and easier to get the required bulk, and I could also buy it at Michael’s on the same supply run where I bought the sequin trim, gold wire, and Sculpey.

Most of the Rumi costumes I’ve seen have used “dragon braids” to make this braid, but that’s not really what is depicted in the movie. It is, however, a good way to get a fat fluffy braid with minimal weight, and I maybe should’ve followed the herd in that respect. But, again, hindsight.

After purchasing two shades of purple yarn, we measured off a giant hank a bit more than twice the finished length needed to make it to River’s ankles. And, once I got it braided up it was both a bit too fat and too short, and didn’t taper nicely along its lengths. Various attempts to splice in more length followed but in the end I just needed to undo the braid, move my “fold point” closer to one end, and wiggle various strands back and forth so that the lengths of the various ends were more staggered. The result is much longer and has a lovely taper, and is actually about 6” too long. I thought we might trim that off but we never quite did.

I sewed some pretty gold bells I had in stash into it for decoration, although the little wire medallions I used on Rumi’s shorts might have been more accurate, and they should be on the sides of the braid, not the places where the strands cross. But River was happy so I was not going to mess with that.

Application was… a thing.

River’s hair is very fine and thin still. Tyo attempted to help it sit more securely by adding a headband, but it didn’t really do much. In the end it was just a matter of about 80 million bobby pins, and then pinning the braid to the collar of the jacket to support the weight of the braid so it wasn’t all on her head. And, it worked, aside from dragging on the ground.

I was initially hopeful that we could forego a hairpiece for Mira, but if River got the full braid, Tris wanted proper Mira hair, too. Mira’s hair isn’t quite as insanely long as Rumi’s, but it is mostly down, which made the yarn-hairpiece thing trickier. A purchased wig would probably have been the way to go, but, well, we were doing yarn so we did yarn.

This one really got away from me. Initially I was thinking simple—the top ponies attached to a headband, and a fall of yarn behind. Of course, falls like that always end up slipping and showing lots of hair underneath. So then I started making a net by tying strands of yarn together to create a rudimentary wig. And I did do the little top ponies but they don’t really stand up in the limp yarn, so you can’t really see them.

But the effect was good, and most importantly Tris was happy, so maybe we’ll call it a win?

Also, you can see in the last pic Rumi’s microphone, which I sculpted kind of last minute as I had told the twins we didn’t have time for them. So that was a fun surprise to pull out right at the end, even though I hadn’t really thought through how to attach my little gold wires with blobs on the end to hold them in place. They were a bit floppy, but had the right look at least, and I think they really sold the costumes as performers for those adults who had no idea who they were.

The whole project was an almost even mix of interesting challenge and brutal judgment from six-year-olds who have studied every frame of the movie minutely and have no concept of what may or may not be possible with limited resources and time. On the other hand, they weren’t judgmental about my dodgy sculpting (except for the smiley faces on the gold studs, anyway). And in the end they were over the moon, so I guess I’ll take it.

I’ll have to keep my eyes open for some inexpensive black sequin fabric, though. I have a feeling we’ll be needing to size these up at some point.