For someone on the outside, the world of cosplay might seem a bit elusive, or maybe just like glorified dress-up. But, as every cosplayer knows, so much work goes into getting the look exactly right.
Chrissy Powell, known as Chrissy Plays Dressup in the cosplay world, is one of those cosplayers looking to make the world a bit more accessible to those just getting started. On their Instagram, Powell offers a multitude of services, such as a commission form for those with a specific character cosplay in mind and tutorials for beginners.
While Powell only recently started offering these services to their followers, they’ve been in the cosplay world for roughly 20 years. But even though they make money from their services and will be appearing as a guest at this year’s Momocon from May 24-27, Powell doesn’t necessarily see themself as what one might call a professional.
“I don’t necessarily think of myself as a professional cosplayer – I see myself as a nerdy artist who is trying to create a more inclusive community,” Powell said. “Whatever visibility I have in the cosplay space I use to encourage creativity/build a sense of belonging/community in the people I interact with. Hopefully that will spread to their friends and followers too!”
Ahead of Momocon, Rough Draft spoke with Powell about the world of cosplay. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I would love to start with the basics. Where did you grow up, and how did you make your way into cosplay?
Chrissy Powell: I grew up in the DMV area, so D.C., Maryland, Virginia. I’m more of an older cosplayer. I think [anime convention] Otakon was happening back when I lived up in D.C., and that was, I don’t know – 2002, 2003?
I’ve always been really interested in anime. My friends and I would order VHSes from the local video store, and they would be imported from Japan with subtitles on them. We would watch those – this is kind of in the infancy of the internet [laughs]. We heard that there was an anime convention going on – actually, I think it was Katsucon, was the first one I went to. Katsucon is super huge now, but back then, it was just maybe a couple hundred people. There weren’t any big names there really, it was just small people. They were showing anime music videos. They’re weren’t a ton of people in cosplay, but I basically went to this convention and saw a few people in costume and said, hey – I want to do that.
You said your friends and you really related to anime. Do you remember a specific one that really hooked you? What about the genre interested you?
Powell: I’ve always been really into art and drawing. I think back then, “Sailor Moon” was airing on the standard TV stations. I’d get up at like 6 to watch it [laughs], and I think I was just so into that style of animation – I hadn’t seen anything like that before – that I started just searching and seeing what else was out there. So, “Sailor Moon” was definitely the first one, and then I think we watched “Cardcaptor Sakura,” but not the one on TV. We got the VHSes for that. Then we got “Akazukin Chacha,” which is a little bit more niche. But I mean, it’s what was available. Those were, I think, the three that started it, and then the internet started to take off so that I was able to find more different types of anime. My friends were into “[Neon Genesis] Evangelion,” but I wasn’t, really. It was a little too bloody for me [laughs]. But pretty much anything I could get my hands on, I was trying to watch it.
When did you start doing cosplay professionally? I don’t know if that’s the right word, but you have a commission form and tutorials available linked to your Instagram. When did that come into play?
Powell: That’s actually kind of recent. I’ve been cosplaying for over 20 years, really, since I started back in 2002. I took a little bit of a break, and then I’ve just kept at it ever since. I’ve just been doing it for fun for so long. You know, It really kind of was the pandemic that pushed me into saying, hey – I think people need community. I think people need a little bit of a more intentional community than what cosplay has become. That’s when I started to really organize all of my resources, because I knew I had a bunch of tutorials, I knew I had a bunch of skills that I could share with people. But I hadn’t really thought to put it all in one place until the pandemic happened, and I could see that people just needed … a little bit of guidance, and they needed a little bit of community and space to express themselves.
I think as more people got into cosplay, they kind of just saw the mainstream version of it, and they were starting to see, oh, only people who are pretty and thin and pale seem to be getting all the attention. So maybe I have to be like that, or maybe I have to spend all this money and commission all this stuff in order to succeed in cosplay. I was seeing a lot of people who were even veterans in the cosplay community say that they wanted to quit because of the shift in what was being valued, now that it was more visible. I just felt like, that doesn’t have to be the way that it is. We can change this community to be what we need.
You said you wanted to create a more intentional community than what cosplay had become. Do you mean in reference to that shift? When would you say that shift happened, as far as what was being valued in the community?
Powell: I think it was definitely changing before the pandemic, but I feel like when the pandemic happened, and so many people were home and only interacting online, I think that’s when it really started to shift. As companies were starting to see that cosplay was profitable, and they were creating more ready-to-buy cosplays, that simultaneously made it accessible to people who didn’t have the skill set, or the energy, or the time to invest into cosplay … and that’s great! However, I think it also kind of changed what the core of cosplay was. I feel like before all of this happened, it was about creativity. It was about self-expression. And if you are just seeing so many people in the same costume from a store, that can change how you perceive this hobby.
Also, when I started to put more tutorials and stuff on was when I decided that I wanted to enter cosplay competitions, because I didn’t see many people like myself entering them. Specifically, Black, slightly older, and – you know, you can’t always tell with people, what their disability is, but being chronically ill, it definitely puts a different limitation on what I can do. But that visibility, for me, I think made me reevaluate. Like, if more people are going to see me, then I want to make sure that everything I have to offer is available to them.
You’ve talked a bit about the skill set required, and I would really be interested to hear you talk about how you go about creating the looks. Because I do think that, from a layman’s perspective, people might not know the difference between this and putting on a costume. But there is a level of creativity that goes into it.
Powell: I mean, it can really vary. I do try to stress that to people, because for me and a lot of people who’ve been doing this for a long time, we’ve had all of these years to be able to perfect our craft. So we’re excited to try new things and continue to keep pushing. But I want to stress that for people just starting out – you don’t have to do everything yourself. Absolutely not [laughs]. But, if you do end up liking the creative aspect of it, it can kind of be a gateway to a million different hobbies. For myself, I sew all sorts of different fabrics. I’m currently working on something made out of sequins and rhinestones right now, which is a little taxing on my sewing machine, but it’s fine [laughs]. I also tend to design my costumes, so that can vary from just saying, I’m going to redesign this to have sequins here instead of it being just a flat color, and then I’m going to choose this specific fabric, because I like the way it plays off of the other fabrics. Or it can be me completely redesigning the costume to be more fanciful, more fantastic, how I want it to look on my body. There’s different facets of redesigning things.
I also design all of my props. That goes from me sketching out a design and then putting it into a program called Fusion 360. Then I 3D print it, then I sand it and paint it, and sometimes add lights to it. I style all of my wigs, sometimes completely from scratch … sometimes dying. I’ve learned so many different types of skills doing this, and that is what is the most fun to me, is learning. There’s even more that I haven’t even touched on. There’s mold making, casting, there’s beading … There’s so many different things you can do. And then there’s no rules to it, right? You can do it the professional way, or you can go to Goodwill and find some ping-pong balls and cut them up and turn them into the most beautiful jewelry you’ve ever seen. That’s what’s so great about it.
Do you have a favorite costume that you’ve made, or is there a particular character you like to cosplay as more than another?
Powell: I’d say right now, the favorite cosplay I’ve made is the one that I’m making [laughs]. I’m hoping to debut it at Momocon, we’ll see. That one is going to be Chibi Moon from “Sailor Moon.” It’s all sequins. But runner-up is Cure Summer from an anime called “PreCure” [also known as “Pretty Cure.”] That is the one that I won Crunchyroll’s Rising Star [Award] from their competition in, and it was the first one that I was able to really spend as much time and energy on as I wanted to. I’d been trying to get back into cosplay in a big way, and that was one thing that – even though the pandemic is very tragic, and difficult, and ongoing, it did give me the opportunity to dive into cosplay and the creative side in a way that I hadn’t been able to in quite a few years. That Cure Summer cosplay means so much to me, and it turned out exactly how I wanted it to.