Halloween Costume - Vorin Havah

Title: Vorin Havah
Halloween is coming up, and with it the wonderful excuse opportunity for cosplay. This year I'll be going as a brightlady from Stormlight Archive, and I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to expand my sewing skills and blog repertoire.

I'd like to start by addressing the sleeves. Yes, one is longer than the other, and yes, this is on purpose. This dress is my interpretation of an in-book costume called a havah. Vorin tradition dictates that a woman's left sleeve be long enough to cover the left hand (called the safehand) for the sake of modesty. On the other hand, (cough*bad joke!*cough) it's perfectly acceptable for the right hand to be exposed.

I think the hardest part was designing the dress. It was an interesting mix of fun and frustrating, as there's nothing quite like it. After reviewing the descriptions in the books, what I had in mind, and dresses that already exist, I finally decided to base my dress on the Vietnamese ao dai. The ao dai's skirt is slit up to the waist and worn with loose pants underneath, which I thought would be perfect for horseback riding, action scenes, and whatever crazy adventures cosplaying brightladies might get into.

The dress isn't quite done yet -- I'd still like to do a bit of embellishing -- but it's been a really fascinating project. I had a lot of help from my mom and grandma to turn this project from an idea into a reality and I'm very grateful I've had the opportunity to work on it.