Costume Breakdown: Rise Kujikawa

I've always been a big fan of the SMT series of games, more recently the Persona series. I had put off playing them for the longest time, but finally broke down when my friend let me borrow her copy. I really liked the game, most importantly I liked Rise the most. She was just so cute and bubbly, and I felt for her backstory, so of course I had to make her.

For the top I picked a basic twill, which works for any basic suit or uniform. The base of the top is made from Simplicity 8523, I wanted the V neck they had and the basic shape. But the shirt is meant to be loose, so I had to take it in to be more fitted.

Looking at her reference, she had these little seam details on the top, all I did for that was create panels and top stitched them on top. They're not really super obvious, but I wanted the detail there, so it was really for myself.

The little modesty collar with the logo on it was just painted on. I used the freezer paper method and painted it on. I sewed in a little clasp so I can open it and stick my head through. The turtleneck is actually a dickie and it was not sewn by me.

The white stitching detail was all done by hand. I used embroidery floss and a chenille needle. A chenille needle is basically a thicker needle, something that I could use to break through the fabric with a thicker thread. I went through by hand and just stitched it in. You can take a piece of chalk and mark off the fabric by hand, but I just sort of eyed it up for the most part. The stitching goes all along the top. It surprisingly wasn't as time consuming as I thought it would be.

The sailor collar is based off of Simplicity 2072. Their collar goes down a bit lower then what I would need it to, so I needed to adjust it for my own top. The yellow stripe is just a piece of bias tape top stitched down onto the collar.

The fabric for the skirt was probably the toughest part. They have a rather specific color, grey on black, which I wasn't lucky enough to find. So I found a cotton print, black and white, houndstooth and I dyed it grey. After that it was rather easy to make up a pleated skirt. I used Butterick 5285 and shortened it to the length I needed.

For the shoes all I did was paint the stitching detail on, otherwise they're basic black loafers. 

The wig was bought from Epic Cosplay, who was rather wonderful and got my wig to me pretty quickly. And that's the details of my Rise costume!

Finished Costume Shots!