Ok, first, ignore the wig. It's all I had that would go with the costume at the time, but I'm getting a proper wig for this very soon. ^_^v I'm also not wearing the black lipstick, because the one I had sucked, and my lips are small so I think lipstick looks weird on me anyway.

So this is my costume of "merveilles" Gackt from Malice Mizer (J-Rock band), which has been a pain in my ass ever since I started it back in October 2002 (and I'm still working on it!). XD But despite how hot this costume is to wear ( not a whole fun walking around in summer weather in a couple layers of black velvet ), and how uncomfortable it can be to wear after a while ( 6 inch platforms boots + heavy wings + long fake nails that pretty much leaves me unable to touch/hold anything ), this is probably my favorite costume that I've done so far.

I was inspired to do this costume after I saw the "merveilles l'espace" concert. The band wore these outfits during "Le ciel", which is one of my favorite Malice Mizer songs. It's just such a pretty and elegant song, and coupled with the costumes it's just full of all kinds of wonderful. X3 And Gackt looked so cool with all of that blood... It's just an awesome costume.

My biggest challenge and grip about this costume is the wings, aka the bane of my existance. I originally bought them from a Halloween store cuz I don't know how to make them from scratch sadly, but because they were pretty damn ugly I spent a small fortune buying feathers and glued them on to make them a little more purtyful... tho now they look pretty beat up, as you can see, so it's off to spend another small fortune on new feathers. XD Also, the original straps sucked and broke anyway, so I replaced them with backpack straps, but because the wings are not secured on a harness type set up they go crooked quite often, which is a big pain/annoyance. If only I knew how to do that.

I just used these two pictures since they show the details on the side of the costume ( the one on the right was taken by Eurobeat King from cosplay.com [link] ). ^_^