The Ten Amongst These Threes: Creating My Katherine Howard SIX the Musical Costume

Like most everything in 2020, Halloween was definitely different. Having Halloween and costume parties wasn't a good idea, and trick-or-treating was iffy. But it was pretty much the same for me since I don't anything to celebrate besides eat candy and dress up for work or just for fun. This year I dressed up as Katherine Howard from Six the Musical, which is a musical about Henry VIII's six wives. (It was actually supposed to open on Broadway the day Broadway shut down.)

Ever since I first saw the costumes from the show earlier this year,  I admired and adored them and thought they were so cool and unique. They're edgy, sophisticated, and modern yet have touches of regal Tudor era attire. Each queen has her own color, and of course I like the pink one best, which is Katherine Howard's!

The costume was unlike anything I'd seen before, and I just wanted to have one to feel and look as amazing, cool, and badass as them. Eventually I looked up the costumes and did some research after seeing a lot of people make their own cosplay versions and decided to take on the daunting project.

For some fun reading music (and/or to understand my subheads), press play to listen to Katherine Howard's solo from the musical!

Also, big shoutout to six.costumes on Instagram for all of the costume photos and resources on her page! (Scroll down to the end for a TikTok of my costume in the making and the final look!)

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A post shared by Six The Musical Costumes (@six.costumes) on May 4, 2020 at 11:09am PDT

I can give it a try

The typical way to go about making a costume or constructing anything from fabric would be sewing. I don't have a sewing machine and realized how expensive a good one is, and I was not up for hand stitching an entire costume when my sewing ability is only okay. So I had to come up with another way to make this costume.

Fashion Friday: Electric Boots Inspiration from Elton John for Halloween

I haven't had a reason to dress up for Halloween for over a decade since I never went to Halloween parties or anything like that in high school or college, but this year I got to wear a costume to work. So I took advantage of that opportunity, knowing not every job I'm going to have is going to allow me to wear a costume on Halloween, and went pretty full out.

My original plan was to wear clothes I already have and make a Lara Jean (from To All the Boys I've Loved Before) outfit out of it since I am basically the Filipino Lara Jean and love her outfits. But I changed my mind about a week before Halloween when I saw how could it was going to be. (It ended up being like 35 degrees and snowing.) All of my potential Lara Jean outfits involve skirts, and while I could wear tights, it would kind of ruin the look of the outfit, so I had to come up with another costume.

About three weeks ago, my sister sent me a sponsored Instagram post of these really awesome platform boots she found on Instagram. They're white with iridescent/holographic pink flames on the sides and reminded us both of something Elton John would wear, so we both thought back to those shoes, and I decided to try to be Elton John for Halloween. After all, Rocketman has become one of my favorite movies, and I've become a fan of him (outside of of The Lion King) this year because of it. Plus, with his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour going on and his autobiography coming out recently, it seemed to be rather timely.

I bought Public Desire's Ablaze White Flame Detail Platform Block Heeled Ankle Boots despite not knowing how/when else I would wear them (they're just so cool that I couldn't pass it up. I'll figure something out) and sought to plan the rest of this costume. Thanks to Rocketman, I had an idea of the kinds of flamboyant outfits Elton John would wear while performing and took inspiration from two specific outfits from the movie rather than copying exact looks.