Is it wrong to buy cosplay? An honest confession about why most of my costumes are store-bought
When I think about cosplay and how I actually got into it, I find it quite interesting how many rules we’ve managed to create around something that is supposed to be so purely fun. You like a character, you want to dress up as them, maybe feel a bit different for a moment, take some nice photos, or just walk around a convention and meet twenty other people who instantly know who you are. And somewhere along the way, a very strange question was born, “Did you make that costume yourself?”
Because if you didn't, it’s almost as if it’s a bit less of a cosplay. Or a less valuable cosplay. Or maybe you’re even less of a cosplayer, which is something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot lately, because most of the costumes I own today were bought. Yes, I literally sat down at my computer, found a costume I liked, pulled out my card, and let someone else sew it for me. Horrible, I know. And you know what? I don't care at all.
Maybe I care even less right now, given that I’m actually sewing a Danmei cosplay myself. Bunji, my Bunny version of Lan Wangji, that is. I started around mid-July in that delightfully naive way where you just tell yourself you’re going to sew a costume. Well, sure. I'll just sew it. What could possibly go wrong?
Back then, I was dealing with white layers, light blue accents, dark blue patterns, embroidery, sleeves, a belt, borders, ribbons, and of course, a million things you have no idea you'll ever have to deal with when you first think, "I'll sew a cosplay." By early August, the base was pretty much together, and I naively thought, Hooray, almost done! It’s October now, and it’s nowhere near finished, so my idea of how fast it would go was clearly very optimistic.
Mimosa: Confiante on a photoshoot as FoxXian. Mimosa: Confiante on a photoshoot as FoxXian.
And this is where we get to the part you never see in a finished photo. For example, I made the inner sleeve hem unnecessarily wide and decided to trim it down. A completely normal thing to do, except that while doing it, I accidentally cut right into the costume itself. It pissed me off big time because I needed to save fabric and really didn't want to remake the whole sleeve. Luckily, it was on the inner sleeve, so I ended up backing the V-shaped slit and sewing a flower patch over it to make it look like an intentional detail in case I ever take off the outer layer. It actually turned out quite nice, and now, of course, I’m debating whether I should sew more flowers on there just to make it completely clear that it was definitely my plan all along. Which, by the way, is a pretty accurate definition of DIY crafting in a nutshell.
Then there are the sleeves. I managed to sew them on backwards four times, which meant ripping out the seams four times and sewing them back on four times. I think by the third or fourth round, I was genuinely ready to throw the whole project into a corner and pretend Bunji never existed. On top of that, I chose viscose for part of the costume without really knowing what I was getting into. First I had to wash the whole thing, no dryer allowed, and then I spent time ironing meters of fabric. Literally meters. After that, I realized standard pins were leaving visible holes in it, so off I went to buy sewing clips, because apparently, while making a cosplay, you also end up collecting gear you had no idea existed a month ago.
Hand-sewn BunJi cosplay by Mimosa Confiante — front view. Hand-sewn BunJi cosplay by Mimosa Confiante — back view.
Take the forehead ribbon, for instance. It was way too long, so I had to shorten it. But there was no way I was going to unpick three meters of finished work because even I have limits, so I just folded it under and called it a day.
To me, this is what real cosplay crafting actually looks like. It’s not that romanticized vision where you sit down at your sewing machine on a Saturday, play a playlist, and end up with a complete costume by evening. It’s measuring, re-stitching, seam-ripping, fixing mistakes, and improvising. Often, a mistake turns into a detail that looks great, but only you know the flower isn't there because you're a brilliant designer, but because you accidentally cut a hole in your sleeve.
Still, I love it. I’ve always been a creative person, and that’s exactly why I took on Bunji. I love that I get to decide exactly how he looks, which shade of blue to use, what the embroidery looks like, and every little personal touch I add. Nobody else will have a Bunji quite like mine, and that’s the beauty of it to me.
But that last part is what matters to me. I didn't start sewing this costume just to stand next to someone who bought theirs and feel like mine has more value. I started sewing it because I wanted to sew.
And I should probably mention something that isn't entirely insignificant, either. I'm actually still a total beginner when it comes to cosplay. I got into it about a year ago, and on top of that, I mostly cosplay Danmei characters. So I didn't start out with a simple skirt or a t-shirt. I jumped straight into long layers, flowing sleeves, belts, trims, varying lengths, and garment constructions that aren't exactly the first thing you pick up from a standard sewing magazine.
Mimosa Confiante as DragonJi Mimosa Confiante as DragonJi
On top of that, most people need a pattern when they’re sewing, something that tells you what to cut out, where each piece goes, and how all those individual parts actually come together into something you can wear. Sure, you can buy some hanfu patterns, even on AliExpress, but that brings us back to the cost and, more importantly, the fact that you need to know how to work with patterns in the first place. For some people, it’s much easier to have an already-sewn costume in front of them, turn it inside out, see how the different layers are handled, or how a sleeve or collar is put together, and then make their own pieces based on that. For me, a store-bought costume was precisely that kind of reference.
And honestly, I don't see anything odd about that. When you're learning to cook, you look at how someone else made a dish first. When you're learning to draw, you observe shapes, shadows, and proportions. For my sewing, I needed to see a finished piece in front of me to make sense of it. A pile of paper pattern pieces that I was somehow supposed to turn into multiple layers of a Danmei costume would have probably been much more overwhelming in the beginning than taking a completed garment and breaking it down with my own eyes. So, even a store-bought cosplay can actually be part of the journey toward making things yourself one day.
And maybe that’s the main thing people overlook in these debates. We don't all do cosplay for the exact same reason, nor do we all start from the same place.
There are professional cosplayers for whom making costumes is a huge part of their work. They compete, host workshops, teach others how to work with materials, and some of them really do craft almost everything themselves. For instance, I follow a girl on TikTok who takes a completely ordinary wig base and turns it into something where I honestly can't fathom how a human brain and two hands managed to do it. I absolutely love watching it, and I think it's amazing.
Just like when someone can embroider an entire costume, make armor, or 3D-model everything themselves from scratch. It’s creativity, craftsmanship, and often years of experience. I genuinely admire people who reach that level, but admiring something doesn't mean demanding it from everyone.
Because right next to a professional cosplayer, you might find a seventeen-year-old girl who just fell in love with a character and wants to cosplay them. She doesn't know how to sew. Maybe she’d love to learn, but she doesn't have a sewing machine at home and can't afford to buy one. She doesn't have the money for fabric, test materials, equipment, and the multiple failed attempts that are simply part of the learning process. So she saves up for a ready-made costume, orders it, and goes to her first con. Do we really need to explain to her that her cosplay is less valuable because of that?
And that brings us back to money. The idea that sewing a costume yourself automatically saves you money is actually pretty funny sometimes. Fabric costs money, thread costs money, embroidery, ribbons, fasteners, and all the little notions do too. On top of that, there’s the gear you buy along the way because you suddenly realize you need sewing clips, a different presser foot, or something you had no clue existed last week. And if you’re still learning, odds are high that you'll mess something up and have to buy part of the material all over again.
Then, of course, there's time, which, in my opinion, is often even more expensive than the materials themselves. I have a job, a family, three kids, a household, a blog, and about a million other things I constantly pile onto my plate because I apparently don't know how to function any other way. So when someone buys a costume for the price I might spend just on supplies, and saves themselves dozens of hours of work, I really don't see why I should tell them they chose the "wrong" path. Maybe they didn't just buy a costume. Maybe they bought those fifty or hundred hours to spend on something else.
Besides, cosplay is a ridiculously broad hobby. Some people know how to sew, others don't. Some excel at styling wigs, others at props or posing. Someone can take a block of foam and turn it into a sword, and I'll stare at it with the exact same confusion as someone else staring at me being willing to re-sew a sleeve four times. So why have we elevated the ability to sew a costume into some kind of entry requirement? If I buy a wig, I'm still a cosplayer. If I don't make my own shoes, I am too. And I sincerely hope nobody is making contact lenses at home, because that would take us into a completely different article and likely straight to the eye clinic ER.
Mimosa Confiante in a DragonJi cosplay with her guqin Mimosa Confiante in a DragonJi cosplay with her guqin
And then there's the idea that buying a costume means you haven't actually done anything. But to me, cosplay was never just a piece of fabric on a body. If it were, we could just put the costumes on mannequins and send them off to Comic-Con by themselves. We’d save money on tickets, and the mannequins would probably handle the queues much better than I do.
What I love about cosplay is everything around it. When I cosplay a character I feel close to, I don't just want their clothes. I want that feeling, the expression, the makeup, the hair, the setting, and the photo I can look at afterward and go, yes, that's it. That’s why some of my store-bought cosplays are just as meaningful to me as the things I make myself, just in a different way.
And that’s precisely why I find it a bit sad how often we try to prove to one another who belongs in fandoms more. Who's the bigger fan, who watched everything, who read the original source, who owns official merch, who was a fan first, and now, apparently, who actually sewed their own cosplay. Yet the reason we all ended up here in the first place is usually incredibly simple. We loved something. A character, a show, an anime, a game, a book, or an entire fandom. And cosplay is just one way to enjoy it a little bit more.
In a competition, of course, it's a different story. If you're competing in costume craftsmanship, it makes sense to judge the crafting process. I wouldn't show up with something completely made by someone else and expect a round of applause for my sewing skills. But most cosplay isn't a competition. Most cosplayers are at a convention, on a photoshoot, on Instagram, in front of a mirror at home, or out in the woods in a wig trying to look dramatic while a mosquito eats their forehead and the photographer says, "Just one more photo and it'll be perfect." And in those moments, debating who stitched the hem really makes no sense to me.
Bunji will be special to me specifically because I made him myself. I'll know about every re-stitched sleeve, the hole hidden under a flower patch, the meters of ironed viscose, and the ribbon I refused to unpick. But I'll also know that I learned a portion of it all thanks to the costumes I bought beforehand and could examine up close. When I finally put on the finished Bunji one day, I'll be proud of him in a completely different way than a costume that arrived in a box, but "different" doesn't mean "more."
So yes, most of my cosplays are store-bought. I've been sewing one Bunji since July, it’s October and it’s still nowhere near done, and currently, I’m deciding whether to sew on more flowers so my scissors accident looks sufficiently artistic. And I’ll likely keep doing both. I’ll sew a costume when I have a specific vision in mind and enjoy watching it come together, and I’ll buy another because it’s beautiful, because I don't have time, or because I'll look at the price of a finished costume, compare it to the cost of raw materials, and happily click order.
To me, cosplay isn't a tailoring exam. It’s a way to play with things I love, to be creative, and sometimes to become someone else entirely for a few hours. And if someone is having a good time doing that, I really don't see why we should look for reasons why one cosplayer is better than another. Because the moment we start using a hobby as just another way to tell people they're doing it wrong, I think we've forgotten somewhere along the way why we even started in the first place.
Yours, Mimosa
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