Sometimes I get requests. Usually I ignore them when they’re of the “Hey…wanna hem my pants?” category. Because, no…I really don’t want to hem your pants. I don’t even like hemming my own pants. Practical sewing is a chore. Creative sewing is a blast. 🙂 But then, every now and again someone wants something awesome….like a Steve Zissou costume from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou for their dress-as-a-favorite-character-from-a-movie birthday party.
When my friend Clay came to me with this request, how could a fellow Wes Anderson/Bill Murray fan say no? We started off with these.
Clay dyed the pants to an almost identical hue to the shirt (Kudos to Clay!), then handed me a bag with the pants, shirt, some blue material, and a Team Zissou patch he found online in it.
After a good bit of work, and much cleverness, his costume was ready!
All the props and accessories are Clay’s fine handiwork. 🙂
Clay’s costume rocked, the party was a blast, and Marty (aka “The Fella”)& I got to revisit our halloween costumes for the occasion!
If you can guess who we are, I’ll be verrrrry impressed by you! 🙂
Happy Birthday, Clay!
I am reading this while the Life Aquatic sound track is playing, even more weird, and in the great words of Simon Pegg, “Its on RANDOM!” LOL
Now I want to get out our MST3K DVDs. Love all the costumes :-).
Thank you for saying out loud, what everyone who can sew wants to say, “No, I don’t want to hem your pants!”
I’m looking to attempt this costume in the near future, and I was wondering- how did you do the darker blue stripe along the buttons and shoulders? Was that fabric dye or the blue cloth you mentioned?
For the front placket, I just made what is basically a really wide strip of seam binding from some blue fabric. I measured the distance of the button holes and made some on the strip. If you don’t feel like doing button holes, you could just cut little slits and use fray check to keep them from getting out of control. for the shoulders, I did the same thing and just folded the edges down and stitched them as close to the seam as possible. It would be even better to just unpick that part of the shoulder seam and stick the tape under it, then stitch it back together.
My friend Clay dyed the white pants blue by putting them in blue dye, but only for about 10 minutes or so.
Hope this helps! I really enjoyed working on this costume, and Clay looked great in it! 🙂
Would you be willing to attempt this feat again, and at what cost?
This was really a collaboration between me and Clay. I could give you pointers and stuff. What are you wanting to do?
I’m about to make an attempt at my own Team Zissou Costume. We have a whole group of people going to Bonaroo next year as Team Zisso with unpaid interns. Any hints or tips?
Do you mean how to do it cheaply? or how to do it?
I was JUST introduced to Mystery Science Theater 3000, it is SO funny. The robot friends crack me up, and my favorite movies so far were Hobgoblins and one about a weird cult and a guy named Torgo. Really the older the better.
I wish I were Steve Zissou.
Hobbbbbbbgoblins! Hobbbbbbgobblins! What do you do with Hobbbbbbgoblins?! They’re over here…They’re over there…:)
Torgo is my hero.
MST is our favorite. We own all of them. Even from the public access cable days. Yes. We are obsessed. 🙂
Have you seen Ator, which is also called Cave Dwellers? That’s our favorite so far, but this Torgo one sounds great!
Excellent Dr. Forrester & Joel (I hope — the show was not quite as good when Joel left). No Tom Servo? (what a great name for a drink though!!!)
I continue to wish I had a working Tom Servo. And yes…a Tom Servo cocktail is in order. 🙂
Gizmonics Institute, Mystery Theatre old tv show (I cheated, I Googled it-though I did watch it a lot at the time). You have fun friends!!
beautiful job!!
Hey! The future really WAS “not too distant”! 😉
Awesome work on the Zissou costume!