Cosplay - Fetish or Fun?

[ltxrob]

@Culmor you certainly seem to have a large collection of cosplay latex...where do you get them made?

[Tinker D]

Yea, I was wondering the same thing.
Where do you find this stuff?

[Culmor]

Where do you find this stuff?

All over! My first choice for rubber catsuits, dresses, corsets and tights is Libidex as their female medium size fits me really well. Also DeMask and Rubber55. Honour for accessories, the High Street ('Office' is good) and Pennangalan for footwear. UKTights.com and dancewear shops for nylon/lycra hosiery. Ebay as a last resort, although I've occasionally found exactly the right thing there far more often 'cosplay' stuff turns out to be 'party-shop' rubbish.

And of course, some stuff you just have to make yourself. For that, DIY, motorist and model shops are favourite, plus industrial suppliers for specialist adhesives.

What I don't do are the Chinese cosplay companies, I've tried several times and never had a good experience: you send every measurement under the sun and what you receive would barely fit the average western twelve-year-old 😟

Edit: I should have mentioned a couple of excellent guys in the USA, Shawn Reeves at ReevzFX for cast latex cowls and Greg Maraio in Boston MA for super-accurate made-to-measure retro costumes.

[Culmor]

I saw this ecard:

   

and thought 'I have some interesting times ahead then...'

   

[Like Ra]

One problem - latex decomposes quite quickly...

[madjack]

One problem - latex decomposes quite quickly...

Really? I genuinely didn't know that.

I'd assumed it would be something like a cycle inner-tube and might crack over time, but would remain mostly intact for many years.

MJ

[Culmor]

One problem - latex decomposes quite quickly...

Not if you look after it, keep it in the dark etc. One Catwoman costume I didn't include in the 'Closet' pic was my original purple Balent suit that I bought at the time his comics were being published  in the early nineties and it's still in as good condition as ever. The only problem is that it's thicker rubber and so not a skin-tight its replacements. Why I replaced it twice, well, I had (have) the original matching hood but at the time I couldn't make convincing ears etc. Then I bought into property and was broke for a few years. After the mortgages were paid off my first replacement Balent suit had an attached cowl that never worked well, though for some reason the one on my Bruce Timm Catsuit bought at the exactly the same time does, weird. So I bought a new purple suit and asked for an off-cut to be included with it. I sent the off-cut to a mask-maker in LA and he made my current cowl to match as best he could.
Shawn Reeves in LA also made my 'Pfeiffer' cowl, great guy. If he made a 'Scarlet Witch' mask I would buy it tomorrow, sadly he doesn't and i need to make my own. I've been assembling materials 😊

[Like Ra]

I'd assumed it would be something like a cycle inner-tube and might crack over time,

It does not crack, but rather softens, then begins to "flow", and then turns into goo.

but would remain mostly intact for many years.

Yes, very thorough care does increase the life-time, however it depends on the quality of latex, thickness, the way you wear it, and

if you look after it, keep it in the dark etc.

The mini-dress I bought in the Clone Zone in London was the longest living latex piece of clothes - about 16-17 years. The inflatable gag I bought in the Cocoon (when they had a filial in Amsterdam) dissolved in a couple of months (they used a copper inner tube, ha-ha...). For some unknown reason the most of my latex died in the last two years. I thought that it was the chlorination, but the "plague" affected also the non-chlorinated items. This is why I decided to stop buying the expensive stuff from the reputable shops and investigate the more affordable Chinese market.

[Culmor]

It does not crack, but rather softens, then begins to "flow", and then turns into goo.

I've had that happen with moulded rubber, never with sheet latex.

Updated pic:

   

[Culmor]

Here's an BR Catwoman catsuit with an unusual design feature, it appears to fasten with a row of press-studs rather than a zip. Seems like a recipe for a costume malfuntion to me (though as we know from Britney's MarcoMarco catsuit zips can fail too).

   

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