This costume was born when I saw the Journeyman Leather booth at Gencon 2006. They have this lovely bodice that they call a lotus bodice. I really wanted one, but I couldn't justify buying it unless I was going to have an actual costume to wear it with.
About a week after the con the idea for the actual costume leaped violently into my head, nearly fully formed (okay, I added a tunic to it after that). I thought it would be highly amusing to be a Suloise sorceress, using a two color lotus bodice as the starting point for the costume. Since the description of typical Suloise clothing seemed to roughly match with traditional Turkish outfits, I thought I would start with that as my inspiration.
I knew there had to be a pattern for the traditional Turkish pants out there somewhere and I've already made four or five t-tunics that I could crib from, so I figured the wouldn't be too hard to make.
I had a little bit of trouble matching the colors for the fabrics, since all I had was a sample of the burgundy leather to go from. I eventually found some burgundy cotton that matched almost exactly. I searched and searched for a good gold fabric, but I couldn't find any cotton in the right warm gold color. I happened to have the gold duppioni silk that I used lying around (don't ask). I had meant to use it for a different project, but eventually I gave up and used it for the pants and shirt instead. I've got about 5 yards left anyway, so I'll have some for what I originally wanted to make (I'll just have to cut it with another color).
I'm not really entirely done with the costume now. I want to remove the false neck and make an actual tunic out of the gold fabric to wear underneath the burgundy over tunic. I'll probably manage to work on it again a week before I want to wear it for GenCon 2007, but I'll finish eventually! ;P
