Helium x Life on Mars
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with SHINee or SM Entertainment in any way. No patterns/fabrics were gifted and all opinions are my own. My need to create SHINee cosplay for my girlies stems solely from my love of the group and each of the members ❤️)
This is something I have been wanting to do for 7 years now. Wow. I can't believe it took that long to get around to making this outfit but now that it's done, not only was it worth the wait but, I sincerely couldn't imagine it any other way!
We have a deep love and appreciation for David Bowie in our family. As a fashion icon, a musician, an actor, and everything in between, it's safe to say he's been a beacon of endless inspiration in my life, and in my little Sephira's too! I'm not sure how long you have been following our blog, but this kiddo of mine has been the biggest lil Bowiewol (short for Bowie fan and SHINee fans called 'shawols') on this planet (or any other for that matter!) since she was about 3-4 years old. In the time since I've started making her Bowie-inspired outfits, she's proven to be fiercely creative, unwavering in her passions even if others bullied her about it, and a completely hilarious and adventurous girl of mine of whom I stand in awe. I wish I had a tenth of her moxie when I was her age! At 5 years old, she'd come home telling me about how kids picked on her because she loved David Bowie, bullied her for being different, etc. That may have forced some kids to conform, but she stood steadfast in being herself and never changed. She's evolved into this super sweet kid with a huge heart, so open-minded, loving, and fascinating to behold, I'm not even kidding. Of course I'm biased, but I tell my kids all the time that I don't just love them, I genuinely like them as the human beings that they are! If they weren't my kid, I'd still admire them, and probably get whatever kiddos I did have to be friends with them! All three of them and Jon are truly my best friends: I confide in them, am inspired by them, and constantly try to be a better person for them.
Recently, Sephira had to do a speech for class about someone who has changed the world in some way. Originally, she asked to do Key but was shot down by her teacher. She told me in tears in the car about how upset she was about it and so we thought of other people she could do instead. I mentioned Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and then, buried in my teenage subconscious, I realized that David Bowie played Warhol in the movie Basquiat which led to me exclaiming, "WHAT ABOUT BOWIE?! You love him so much, collected books about him for years, you already know so much about him!!" And the way her face lit up was so precious- but then she crumpled and said "What if he says "no" again?" She had spent all day working on someone else in class. I said, "If it really means something to you, then why not spend the night working on it to show how passionate you are about Bowie and how he changed the world?" So that's what she did, we researched the countless articles about how David Bowie has changed the world and she presented it to her teacher and he agreed!🥳She was screaming, she was so happy! I even drafted/made an updated shirt version of the Ziggy Stardust onesie I made when she was 5 years old (she has never stopped asking for another one and I woke up at 4 am that day to make it for her!)
Why the long story? Because this rekindled the love of Bowie in her! As she got older, she naturally gained new interests but Bowie and Man Man, and SHINee have always stayed at the forefront in her heart. Now, she's requesting all sorts of Bowie outfits! She said she wanted to do Life on Mars for Easter and I told her how I was planning on doing a Helium (from Key's Bad Love album) x Life on Mars crossover. It was an obvious collaboration considering Key himself mentioned how this album was heavily influenced by his long-time admiration of David Bowie😱🤯I had my assumptions bc the sound of the album and a lot of the imagery are all very Bowie-esque. Key even made this outfit in at least 4 different colors for his Helium stages! I even had these two fabrics I've been hoarding since Fabric Depot was still a thing specifically for a Life on Mars outfit and it was SHINee colored! (that's pearl aqua green if you didn't know!) Oh! This project was so important to me and to Sephira that I even documented the process along the way on Twitter.
Patterns
I wanted it to look like the Helium suit, with the Life on Mars aqua color, the striped undershirt and tie, and also Bowie's makeup. That was the plan. So that means there's a:
blazer
corset
overvest
undershirt
pants
face mask
tie
A small fraction of my workspace/design board for creating the Helium/Life on Mars suit.
The edits I made to make it like the Helium suit weren't too hard to figure out. It was more the "having to make a muslin of each and everything" that was time-consuming. That meant I had to draft and redraft and redraft not only the blazer elements (namely the sleeves) but the corset, the overvest, the pants- all of them many times before getting it just right.
First things first, I needed a blazer pattern. She is still outside of the size range for the Jasika Blazer, sadly, so I had to find something else that would work. I ended up going with a Burda pattern, no. 140 Boys' Blazer. The lines were ones I could work with and the size range was just right.
This was my first time sewing a Burda pattern and omg I was not ready😂😳As a general rule, I tend to stay away from paper patterns because as an early seamstress I found them hard to follow. The fact that I was even entertaining the idea of getting a pattern like that should inform my desperation. Still, I had no idea-
There are no seam allowances so I had to go and draft them all in. Ok, no big deal, annoying but I can do that.
The pattern notes are laughable. It was so tricky because they make you draft some of the pattern pieces on your own and the wording on what and how to do it is not super easy to understand.
The instructions/tutorial……………….. 😶😵💫ok well, for starters there are no pictures. NONE. A whole blazer pattern and basically zero guidance. All of the text is written in paragraph form and it's like 4 paragraphs for the whole thing. Had I not already had a working knowledge of how to put a blazer together at this point, it would have been completely impossible. There was this one part where you are attaching the neck binding facing and back and collar that was so inarticulate that it took me hours to figure out, realized I messed up, try to figure out again, and do it over. I made a test version of the blazer (with the edits I made and pictures to go along with it) and I still struggled on the main blazer!
The most annoying part was how well it actually fits. LOL. Why? Because if it was just a bad pattern, I could write it off and never make it again. But it wasn't a bad pattern; it fit perfectly. Even the pieces I struggled with at times all fit just right. IT WAS SO MADDENING!😅😵💫
If anyone is interested in my notes, let me know in the comments, I rewrote the instructions myself and I referenced the Jasika Blazer to draft my own pieces that that pattern has that this one didn't (like using weft interfacing for the main bodice pieces, drafting sleeve interfacings and sleeve hem interfacings and back interfacing pieces, etc. I also added in sleeve heads and shoulder pads like the Jasika so that the shoulders were well enforced and super attractive.) Also, one of the things I did to keep sane (especially since there were so many varying seam allowances) was to hole punch and chalk the pattern corners so I knew where to align all of the pieces.
By far, if there was an award for difficulty on this outfit, it would go to the blazer sleeves. Aside from adding the “control panel” to the left sleeve which I made from recycled foam, I struggled with these sleeves so much! I tried so hard to figure out how to make a lined, pointed hemmed sleeve with a working button placket. Oh, I could have done it easily if that sleeve wasn't pointed but it is and man did that get me so locked up! Two days later, I waved the white flag and succumbed to doing my very best to make a "non-working" button placket. I think it looks pretty good. Was I bested? 100%! But there isn't any guidance online on how to make that specific sleeve work so I'm at peace with it now😂. I also added lots of curves and angles to the blazer, reducing the collar by about an inch so that it stood up like Key's did. Where there were darts, I altered them to be princess seams so that I could make the piecing look the same as well. And every single one of those buttons was covered and stitched on. I think it was 19 total buttons that I covered in fabric😵💫!
The corset and the overvest were completely self-drafted. I took her measurements and made a rough estimate of how to make it and made a lot of test edits to get the fit perfect. Honestly, I wish I would have made the corset longer. I guess I didn't do it originally because the shape of Key's wasn't very long but I forgot that he doesn't have the same waist/hips shape as her. But it fits her waist really, really well. I added interfacing to both the main and lining pieces and added doubled-up plastic boning in channels all around. It's like armor.😂
The overvest was interesting to make- I bought a black, translucent vinyl that was pretty thin. From it I cut 5-6 layers of each pattern piece from it and layered it, using a black, duck canvas as the backing. The buckles on the back I also made, making a fabric sandwich consisting of a thin, fabric-backed black vinyl-then- fusible webbing-then black, duck canvas-then-fusible webbing-then fabric-backed black vinyl. I'm no stranger to ironing vinyl even though it's very taboo. I can't say I haven't had some mistakes in the past, but I feel that if I’m using a pressing cloth, making sure it never touches the vinyl (also giving it time to cool before moving it) is a must. The straps looked perfect, however, I struggles to set in the eyelets. I don't know why they gave me so much trouble (I've put in tons of eyelets/grommets in the past) but they did. Still, for my first buckle closures, I think they came out pretty well. She loves the overvest- she calls it her chest shield because it's so hard that you can knock on it and it makes a sound!😅
For the pants, I custom-sized the Sasha Trousers by Closet Core Patterns to fit her smaller size. I made sure to make a muslin and used the ever-so-helpful ‘Pants Fitting Guide’ to tweak the fit so that it didn’t have any smile or drag lines, etc. I am 100% certain that, somehow, I ended up with too much waistband. I made these before for Azriella’s Advice outfit and didn’t have the same problem so I must have mis-read something. It’s a lot of work to pick it out and redo it at this point but I think I might, if I can, so that they look more polished. I love love love how well the welt pockets go together! I have said it before but, seriously, the pieces and instructions are perfection and I’m so pleased with how clean it looks! Next time I want to try out adding buttons, but I wanted it to be as much like Kibum’s (Key’s) as possible. I did add some center front leg pleats like his though!
Her undershirt is the good ol' Laramie shirt pattern that I've made a zillion times but I mashed it up with the Vivie dress pattern because the one thing the Laramie doesn't have is a top button and a tighter neckline for something like that. I love the shape and length of the Laramie so I kept that, and I used the button placket and the neckline and collar of the Vivie. I bought this striped charmeuse fabric a million years ago and at the time a half yard would have made her a shirt, no problem. Now? Not so much, lol. To remedy this, I added the same white I used for the collar and placket. I have to say- it is maybe the most perfect button-down that I have ever made! I take a lot of pride in the shirts I make and for whatever reason, this just went together surprisingly well and super quick too! She is so in love with it, she wore it to school and ask for “a lot more like this”! She pairs it with shorts and white high tops and it’s so cute!
I made her a face mask out of the thin, fabric-backed, black vinyl, but I omitted the interfacing that I would usually use because I figured vinyl is pretty nonporous on its own and I wanted it to have some breathability. It looks so badass, I love it!!! It also goes with almost any outfit!
Last but not least, I made her a tie. It was hard finding a tie pattern that had velcro back, but since the details on Bowie's tie are so precise, I had to make a faux one. I used what I think is actually a lunchbox lining fabric and made an exact tie shape of vinyl dots to, again, iron-on carefully, as well as red and white iron-on vinyl stripes. Obviously, if you are going to follow me in ironing on vinyl by all means do a test first to see if it will work and to adjust your temperature just right.
Oh! I actually did do one more little thing and that was to spray paint the ray gun silver! I absolutely loathe guns, but it’s such an integral part of Key’s outfit/photoshoot, I thought it was important not to skip it. Also, it’s more of a space ray laser style gun and not a “pew pew” kind of gun.😉
The Photoshoot
I know I say this almost every time so I'm definitely a broken record, but the end of this photoshoot was just chef's kiss perfection! I tried out this new photography light I got from my mom for Christmas, the Neewer 530. IT'S SO COOL OMG I LOVE IT SO MUCH! It's fully adjustable and has controls on the back to not only adjust the temperature and brightness but it also is RGB and has a bunch of settings for party scenes and other kinds of scenes, and you can pinpoint the exact color and saturation you want without the use of an app but if you needed to, there is an app too! It has 4 barnyard doors to adjust the shadows and it fits on most lighting stands. It works on both a dc adapter and dual battery packs which I bought separately. It's seriously bright as heck too! Again, I'm not endorsed to say any of this, I just got a thing and it's awesome and I wanted to tell you about it! I am seriously considering getting a second one, that's how much I love it. Since indoor photography is a must for us sometimes, this is a game-changer.
In a perfect world with endless time, perfect weather, and no care of over-using gasoline, I would have wanted to go to the John Day Fossil Beds (Painted Hills) like I did for the Tank Girl photoshoot. It would have been perfect for the Mars backdrop I desperately wanted. But it's been so rainy lately and they're over 4 hours away in the super desolate middle of Oregon. We got terribly lost on the way back last time and it's a very treacherous stretch of road for most of the trip out. We went out of our way by over two hours on the way back… ended up in the Dalles rather than on the opposite side of Mt. Hood! So- no Mars photoshoot☹️!!!
We went for a solid white backdrop like Bowie did for the Life on Mars video instead, copying poses from him and from Key. I thought about editing in some backgrounds but I just really didn't want it to look dumb so I stuck with just white!
I had forgotten to edit her eyes like Bowie's like I had done last time until I had finished editing them all, ugh, so for fun I did a full-on, high key blown-out edit just like Life on Mars for this singular shot.
Towards the end, I employed the help of Azriella to hold up this small sunset lamp (I tried to return to amazon… I mean… am stuck with.. I mean bought😂) with the pink setting on and I set the Neewer lighting to SHINee aqua and the results… the results… I just tear up at how much I love them. I'm not kidding, I just get so worked up over how perfectly she posed and expressed herself on top of the lighting… It was so far beyond my wildest expectations. Hands down, it's up there as one of my ultimate top photos ever. She looks so androgynous and her gaze is so searing- it was exactly the mood I was going for!
I have always wanted and tried many times to get a perfectly lit duo-toned shot and I'm just so emotional over finally getting it right!
Oh! You might have noticed on some of the pics on this and on the Saturday Night Wizards post that I made a special watermark graphic! I did a half-toned Bad Love edit just like Key has in the corner of each of the posters (yes, I have them all and yes, they are all framed😌)
So that's about it! This outfit is like a vital organ to my sewing repertoire: it means so much to me on so many levels and it's so special to me and means so much to me that something I've been planning for almost a decade is finally out into the world! I truly hope you like it and enjoyed hearing all about the process!
Lil Shawol singing Life on Mars by David Bowie during our Photoshoot!
Lil Shawol singin and dancing to Helium by Key!
YAY! You're here! I'm so happy! I'm Kat! Mom, shawol, and pattern designer, this is the place where I share all of my sewing projects, chibi cosplay fashion, and DIY/tutorials! Everything around here is action-packed with color, silliness, and tons of kawaii stuff!