Arena 2002 was the very first Ayu concert dvd I ever bought, so it holds a special place in my heart. One day I would love to have made all the costumes from this concert. It's not one of her best, but it was my first, so it's my favourite. ^_^ And yes, all my Ayumi costumes get nicknames. I think it's quite obvious why this one is called the SHINY PANTS! XD
I promised myself that if I were to ever find a pair of cheap pin stripe pants that I would make this costume. Back in February 2006 I managed to find what I was looking for, and thus began my 10 month beading extravaganza! Just about every pin stripe on these pants have been hand beaded with black bugle beads (I believe the grand total was 21 vials of beads). I worked on these on and off between February to December 06, with the bulk of it done during my 6 hours of class lectures last semester (yes, I'm bad, but Rogue was done mostly in the back of my Art History class back in first year university. I like to think of myself as using my boring class time wisely. ^_^)
Ayumi's original suspenders were covered with big rhinestones, but since I can't afford that, I used a strip of silver sequins instead. The strip (not every individual sequins mind you) was hand sewn by myself onto a pair of ugly suspenders I found at Value Village.
The t-shirt was a poor defenseless shirt from Old Navy that I cut up and put a zipper in the back. The design on the front was cut out from a much smaller picture in photoshop, reworked, and then reworked again by Squall1882 in whatever programs he has until it was just right. I put it on the shirt using iron on transfer paper stuff, and the colour on the "A" was done with marker by Ochika while I was running around trying to get stuff together for Artist Alley at Ohayo.
Edit (as of October 15th, 2007): I finally finished this costume! Back in June I found a MATCHING jacket at a completely different Goodwill and went to work beading the whole thing. I have not real idea why, but it took 10 months, on and off, to bead the pants, and only 4 months, on and off, to bead the jacket. I think part of it had to do with my computer being broken during the month of July, since I like to hand sew/bead while watching TV. ^_^ The hat is borrowed from my dad (he has a strange obsession with hats …) and the band is leftover sequins trim from the suspenders. I would have liked to have made the shiny cuffs Ayumi wore during the CountDown Live. Maybe some day. ^_^
SolarTempest is the amazing photographer who did all the downtown Toronto photos with me. Honestly, the main reason I continued working on this costume was because I had the ideas for this photoshoot in my head for years. SolarTempest gets all my love for making the pictures in my head into reality. ^_^
Canada