Designer: Kelsey Michele
Title: This Was a Triumph – Portal
Texas-born, Indiana-raised, and now living in Florida, Kelsey Michele is and has always been an artist and a nerd at heart. Professionally, she works as a designer in the theme park industry, and though her job has her mainly focusing on sets, props, and attractions, she has occasionally designed costumes and uniforms for characters and employees based around historical, modern, and fantasy themes. Drawing was her passion from a very young age, often drawing fantasy creatures like centaurs and fairies. Throughout her teen years, her love of anime, cartoons, and superheroes was expressed through her art. It was only during college that she started to explore the worlds of fashion and costuming more thoroughly. “Being at an art school, you could pretty much throw a paintbrush and hit a cosplayer,” she says. “That’s where I first started to learn how to sew again and grew to love giving 3D, physical manifestations to the designs I was doodling between classes.” Being mostly self-taught in sewing, she is always looking to expand her skills by taking on harder, more involved projects. “When I’m not drawing, patterning, sewing, or hot gluing my fingers together, I’m playing video or tabletop games with friends or visiting theme parks. I’ve always worn my nerdom on my sleeve, even when I have to make the sleeve myself!”
Kelsey has designed a number of “geek couture” outfits over the years for fun, a few of which have been fully realized as actual garments either by fans of her work online, by friends, or herself. “As I’ve gotten more into cosplay, I’ve taken to designing original costumes based on characters or extrapolating on existing designs with more historical or fashionable details,” she says. “Fashion can be many things, but whether it’s functional or simply fabulous, it should work to express something about the wearer. As a nerd with a penchant for good design and wish for more inclusion of feminine pursuits in comic books, gaming, and everything else the geek world contains, it’s an important way to carve out a space for others like me to support each other and celebrate all that we love about these characters and stories.”
Photo: Mark Edwards