status: Finished -- links to photos below

worn: By Jennifer for A-Kon 2001.

how it was made: I got some leather-look vinyl. It's unfortunately in black, because I wasn't able to find a store that had the dark russet stuff in the correct amount and for an affordable price. I think Jennifer can manage. The shoulder-pieces ("shield" in trenchcoat parlance) are dark brown because I again couldn't find the right color for the right price. Pictures of Aya and his portrayals in the anime don't have the coloring consistent anyway, so if anyone complains we'll just mumble something about alternate versions and slink off. If I was willing to pay $50/yard, I could have gotten some beautiful faux leather in just about any color I wanted, but my and Jennifer's dedication to the art of cosplay doesn't go that far.

I put together two patterns to do this - a Vogue trenchcoat and a Butterick 1930s suit, which had lapels closer to what I wanted. That was ... educational, but I managed to pull it off. The lapels aren't quite right, but nobody but me seems to care. :)

The secret to sewing vinyl is to sew through wax paper. Vinyl catches on the sewing machine foot and stretches or otherwise messes things up, but wax paper stops it doing that and is transparent enough that you can see what you're sewing through it. And there's a bonus: it gives the person wearing the costume something to do when they're bored at a panel - picking out all the teeny pieces of paper left in the seam.

Pictures in progress! 5/26/2001 -- less than a week until A-Kon...