
Superheroes keeping the neighborhood safe from too much chocolate
It all starts with a drawing and a list
Every creative undertaking starts with a drawing and a list. And a timeline. For a creative person I have some really rigid tendencies. After all, I was trying to approximate this:
Without the Hollywood budget. After mentally toying around with using pleather or vinyl to create the Dora Milaje harness, I wondered if I could modify a T-shirt with some strategic cutting. From there I figured another T-shirt would do for the skirt. After that it was a case of that creative hamster on a wheel that comes up with all the ideas, which resulted in this drawing and list:

Preliminary list. Shut the Front Door means on top of all this I have to decorate the front door, too, dammit.
Part of the beauty of this idea was I already had a red long sleeved t-shirt, which had already looked upon a previous Halloween as Wonder Woman. I purchased a brown T-shirt, a man’s medium. At the last minute I opted not to go for a snug fitting shirt because what if it was too snug? It’s easier to take something in. Using my own fitted T-shirt as a guide, I traced its outline with chalk on the wrong side of the brown shirt. I sewed along the chalk a tried it on for fit. Satisfied, I used chalk to outline the areas to cut out, referring to the picture of Okoye. The one mistake I made was outlining the bust too generously. It made my upper story look too big. I guess if it were an actual comic book that would be ok but that’s not really my aesthetic. I eventually had to add back material to the areas I cut so if I could do this over again I would cut conservatively first. Also, it was going to be dark so no one would see the rough areas. Since this was T-shirt material and stretchy, I also added interfacing along the bust line for some structure. Along the way I kept checking fit and I ultimately had to tack some areas to get the harness to fit snugly in the right places. The harness was my miners canary – if it didn’t work out I was going to stop right there. However, I was satisfied with how it turned out.
Adding the skirt
I next bought an XL women’s mustard yellow tank top and cut it right below the arm pit to maximize the amount of material I had to work with. The hem was rounded and high low, so that was favorable. I took it in a little bit around the waist as if I was fitting a skirt. After comparing against the picture, I cut away the front of the skirt at an angle and sewed it to the harness. Believe it or not due to my screwed up brain I had such a hard time figuring out how to pin which side to which side to sew it correctly. Easy stuff like this confuses me, or rice krispy treats, or jello squares. Anyway, after 10 billion tries I figured it out.
Tasseled choker
Although the skirt and harness were the most difficult to construct (or destruct in the case of the harness since it was a lot of cutting), I was really stumped on the choker. There was no way I was going to attempt to garrote myself with a bunch of actual wire. That would be super uncomfortable. At the fabric store I found some crushed gold material in the fancy section I never shop in, that looked like wires. Next I found some gold tassels, which in another time would have looked fantastic on some Victorian drapery. I cut a piece to fit my neck and backed it with muslin to give it some structure then added Velcro to the ends to secure it. After that it was a simple matter of attaching the tassels to the gold material, and the choker was done.
Bracelets and epaulets
I ended up using the choker material to make bracelets, too. I intended to use spray painted vinyl but I cut it wrong, and the choker material was quicker to make and stretchier and therefore easier to put on. However, the vinyl did work well for epaulets. I cut four trapezoids (two for each arm) from some leftover vinyl I had, and spray painted them gold. I opted not to hot glue Velcro to the vinyl but instead stapled it. Not really up to my standards but I know nothing about sewing vinyl and this was not the time to break my machine. I added Velcro to the brown T-shirt to line up with the epaulets. In retrospect I should have cut six epaulets and added elastic to go around my bicep on the last one but . . . Next Black Panther movie I guess.
Hangy thing/tabard
I don’t even know what a tabard is, and I refuse to use a word I don’t know. But hangy thing down the front with beads on it clearly makes me sound … well not like a 44 year old woman who knows what she’s doing. Nevertheless, I busted out some fabric paint to start making the beaded designs. Before I added the paint, I did add interfacing to give it some structure and make it hang appropriately, otherwise no one would know it was a hangy thing. I dotted paint in chevron designs and cut a belt buckle out of gold card stock which ultimately did not make it on the costume. Uhh, someone, I’m not gonna say who, forgot. Also, FYI tabard is not what I thought it was but I’m just going to leave it there.
Spear, pants, boots, make up and hair – should I shave my skull?
If you’ve read my Black Panther post, you know making a spear ain’t no thang. A cardboard blade affixed to a slit in a cardboard tube and spray painted silver. I found some leggings that had some detail that ultimately could not be seen, but made me feel authentic. I added my rain boots and all costume articles were ready.
Now what to do with the face? The Dora Milaje are pretty well made up, so I couldn’t go in all naked face, even if it was dark outside. I did way more eye make up than usual/ever, with some vibranium purple eyeliner and shadow. I followed that up with a dark lip color to accentuate all of Africa that is housed above my chin and below my nose.
And the hair. The one time in my life when naturally curly, frizzy, African American hair was a plus. Just a tad too short to really give that African emphasis. First I went the Nakia in Korea route and I started looking like Mr. Glass in Unbreakable. Uh, no. Shave my head like a real Dora Milaje? Noooo, I don’t think so. Bantu knots? “Knot” enough hair. Afraux-hawk? Nope. I finally did some Afro-punk meets 1940s (just thought that up now, but if I could dress myself the rest of my life according to that mantra I totally freaking would) with three roll ups, like curling the hair minus the rollers, across my crown, and two rows of twist corn rows on the sides.
How’d it go?

Post trick or treat glory, ready to use my spear on some Almond Joy’s.
So long answer to short question, you can make a Dora Milaje costume out of two t-shirts. Challenge accepted. And won.