Misato Katsuragi is my favourite anime character. She is from the series Neon Genesis Evangelion. She has two main outfits, consisting of a red jacket over a black dress, or with a black top and matching red skirt. With both outfits she wears her red military style beret. I first made the red skirt version for AVCon 2006 and later the black dress for Sydney SupaNova 2006.

Red skirt: Red stretch cotton drill
Black top (with skirt): black knitted top I owned
Red jacket: Red stretch cotton drill
Black dress: Black garbedine stretch suiting
Beret: Bought
Jacket & skirt decorations: Yellow, orange and black felt
Cross necklace: Sculpey


Jacket

The pattern I drafted started as a basic fitted jacket. I then altered it to make it the short style with the cutaway at the front. The jacket is unlined, to help cut the bulk out.

The collar is lined in a blue/grey drill. At the front opening of the jacket I sewed Velcro on the collar so it can be done up when the jacket is zipped up. I had a few problems with the collar matching up, and I had originally made the neckline of the jacket too large, so the collar was too wide. It took a few alterations to fix this, but it fit okay in the end. The front of the jacket is closed with a zipper.

The sleeves are a basic, relatively fitting sleeve pattern, flared it out slightly at the wrists. The sleeves are slit open at the wrists and fitted with a zipper. I assume is to allow for the sleeves to be rolled up, as we often see Misato wearing them.

Skirt

I used McCall's pattern #3830, which is a simple skirt pattern with several different lengths. The skirt I had done in a single night - about two hours in front of the TV. As the fabric is very stretchy and I was feeling lazy, I didn't put in any zippers or closures - it can just slip on without them. If I end up wearing this often I'll put a zipper in so it doesn't stretch out of shape. I decided to add a waistband as I didn't like the look of the skirt with just facing at the top, which is what the pattern had. The skirt is finished of by wearing a black leather belt over the top.

Embellishments

The jacket has two black stripes down the front and a patch on each sleeve. It also has decoration on the shoulders. The beret (which I purchased from a hat shop) has a similar patch on it. The skirt has a black stripe down the front.

All patches and black stripes were made with felt, hand stitched onto the jacket sleeves and the beret.

The shoulders took a little longer, and had to be made before the jacket was sewn together so they could be sewn in with the shoulder pieces. I used a red felt for the base, slightly lighter and with more of an 'orange' base than the red of the jacket. These were cut to match the shoulder pieces of the jacket. I then cut out the zigzagged lines and glued them onto the red felt. Once the glue was dry, I cut the red felt back, from the neckline to the first black line, as the shoulder decoration don't cover the entire shoulder piece, just the half closest to the arm hole.

The black stripes on the front of the jacket were cut out and sewn on by machine, as was the black stripe down the front of the skirt.

Black Dress

It's a very basic dress - seams at the sides, front and back, with an invisible zipper in the front. It is sleeveless, with a high collar. Both the collar and the sleeves are edged with white binding. I used a black stretch garbedine suiting for the fabric. A friend helped me draft the pattern via draping.

Necklace

I made this out of Sculpey. I rolled out the Sculpey into the thickness I wanted then cut the cross. Before baking it, I poked a hole in the top for the chain to go through. I then baked it for about 15 minutes, and once it was completely cooled gave it a few coats of sterling silver acrylic paint. It was finished off with gloss varnish.

Hat & Shoes

The beret I bought from a hat shop, as the colour matched perfectly. Then it was just a matter of sewing on the yellow and black patch. I didn't have boots like Misato wears, so I just wore some black heeled boots that I already had.