Reading a cosplay book I scooped up from the library, because I wanted to review it for my cosplay blog. It is quickly approaching DNF territory, and I am only pressing on so that I can give an accurate review with a fully-formed opinion.
The topic is casual cosplay, and putting together character-inspired outfits for regular day wear. I grabbed it from the library because I THOUGHT it might go into detail about silhouette, color blocking, and tips for translating animated designs into real-world clothing. Instead, it's pretty much just a Disneybounding lookbook, almost exclusively using models who are skinny white cis women (as far as I can tell based on the models' supplied social media handles). Thus far I have seen exactly one woman of color, and zero fat people. There has been one white man, and, as far as I can tell, zero nonbinary people of any race or presentation.
All the looks thus far are focused on femme women, which wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that it, 1) wasn't billed as a book about women's fashion, it was billed as a cosplay guide for anyone to use, and, 2) the author seems to be assuming that her audience is made of entirely of femme cis women who like wearing skirts. This author's idea of what makes a "masculine" outfit is a fucking joke. A skinny blonde cis woman in a ruffled off-the-shoulder crop top and low-rise jeans being called "masc" is testing my resolve to finish reading this mess. I don't think this author has ever seen a butch in her life.
Over half the book has been Disney focused, and I've just realized that the back half is almost exclusively Harry Potter. Like. This book came out in 2021, well after JRK got onto her TERF poison. You have no excuse. Ugh.
And if all of that isn't pissing me off enough, the author gives the constant advice to "buy cheap stuff on Shein!" Like, literally name-dropping Shein and multiple other fast-fashion dropshipping platforms.
This book sucks. It may say it's a guide to casual cosplay, but really it's a guide for skinny femmes to find fast fashion apps that will sell them something that looks vaguely like a Disney princess if you squint.
#grosssss#op maybe you need to write the book you thought it might be#maybe time for a kickstarter?
Listennnn, I have read multiple shitty cosplay books over the past month and I was literally just talking to my housemates about how, if I had an unlimited budget, I would pay HEAPS of money to all my nerdy fat trans butch friends who sew in order to collaborate on a book of our own. I'm not confident enough in my sewing skills to write tutorials about things like alterations, upsizing prefab patterns, or drafting customs based on your personal measurements, but aaaaaaaaaaaaugh, I DREAM of a cosplay book written for people who are fat, poor, and can't drop a trillion dollars on a new Shein wardrobe every three months.
