Indiana Jones Cosplay Outfit

The second theme during season 11 of Project Run & Play is Cosplay Craze.  If you’re not familiar with the term Cosplay, it’s basically dressing up as a character from a movie, book, cartoon, etc.  The Project Run & Play theme had one stipulation; the creation should not be a costume.

My son has been asking for a leather jacket for a long time, so I used that request to tailor (see what I did there?) this prompt to fulfill that request and one other of his requests too.  If you haven’t guessed, our cosplay inspiration character is Indiana Jones.   Here’s the details on how we created an Indiana Jones cosplay outfit.

After looking at several photos of Indiana Jones, I decided it was time to fulfill my son’s request that the next pair of pants I sew for him have a real zip fly instead of a faux fly like the previous two pairs of pants I’ve made for him.  So I turned to Peekaboo Pattern Shop for their classic chinos pattern.  (affiliate link)  It’s a great pattern, and you really do end up with (wait for it) classic chinos!

This pattern can be made in 13 sizes from 3 months to size 12.  Thomas is almost in the largest size for length, but only an 8 in width, so I should be able to make this pattern work for a while yet.

I found the pattern very thorough and easy to follow except for one little instruction on the welt pockets.  After checking with the Melly Sews welt pocket tutorial, I was good to go.  I won’t have any trouble in the future, but it was my first time constructing them this way, (also known as the REAL way!)  The zip fly came out impressive, so Thomas can be assured of real zip flies on all the pants I sew for him in the future.

You should recognize the shirt pattern we used if you’ve been around Skirt Fixation any time at all!  It’s the Oliver+S Field Trip Raglan T-shirt.  Allegra embroidered Indiana Jones’ iconic bullwhip on the front.  I did make two changes to the pattern this time; I added sleeve cuffs and a band around the bottom.

Apparently Thomas has grown since I made him a long sleeve version of this pattern and the sleeves were too short.  So then I added a hem band also to make it more like a sweatshirt in cut.

Finally the leather jacket.  I started with a suede leather skirt of mine and a suede leather jacket I picked up at a thrift store.  By serendipity, they were exactly the same shade of brown, and it was a good thing since I used most of both of them to create this Indiana Jones jacket.

Unfortunately much of the original jacket had become brittle, or started to rot?  Anyway it tore very easily.  So I basically harvested the zipper and used part of the sleeves from the original jacket.

 

If you are interested in the full tutorial on how I made it, you can find it here on Refashion Co-op.  I used the Downton Duffle Jacket pattern (affiliate link) and tried to preserve the cool pockets from the original jacket.

Thomas requested a secret pocket on the inside, so I was able to use one of the pockets for that.   I realized as I was refashioning this skirt into a jacket that I had done exactly the same thing for one of my very first sew along entries for Project Run & Play!  Lots of work, but impressive and long lasting results.

The snap tab from the other pocket became a snap tab at the collar.

That’s it except a few details about the photo shoot.  Allegra had an awesome Indiana Jones photo shoot planned in an area that would have been perfect, but then she got sick!

So Thomas and I walked out into the woods on this icy cold day.  It was all going great until my iPhone, my only camera, decided to shut down because of the cold!  (Did you know they’ll do that?)  So we only managed to get a few photos and they’re far inferior to what could have been, but I tried to fill in the gaps with some flat lay detail photos.

Be sure to hop over to Project Run & Play to see what the contestants made (prepare to be awed!) and don’t miss the sew along entries too.