Futaba Sakura

Persona 5

Phantom Thief (Oracle)

• Status: Active

• Cost: ~$70

• Bought and worn in 2018

Once I had thrown together Summer Futaba, I had an itch to cosplay the phantom thief outfit. Around Thanksgiving, Miccostumes was doing a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale on a bunch of outfits, and since Oracle cost only $50, I jumped on it. I figured even if it wasn't perfect, that was a pretty dang good price, and cheaper than my materials would be if I were to go buy them individually and spend the time on it.

It's not the worst costume I've bought, but the sizing is all over the place. It seems that this costume runs large, because a friend of mine had similar issues when ordering this same costume.

Things I altered: the gloves, the belts, and the pants. The gloves arrived way too large on me (several inches too big), but this is a general problem for me with gloves; I've got very small hands. The pants were a whole size too big on me. I hemmed several inches off the bottom and took in the pants at the crotch and the waist. I also shortened the elastic on the kneeguards because I noticed they kept slipping on me when I wore the costume at a convention for the first time. (I'd walk a few paces and then have to adjust them again!) It took me two times of wearing this to get the belts to how I want them. They arrived with pin mechanisms on the back to attach them to the belt/belt loops, but they'd either not sit on me right or pop right off of the main black belt. So, I just attached velcro to the belts to where they should fit on me. Now I just velcro them on.

I did make the goggles, though! I even have a video work log on it. I used EVA foam and craft foam, and my primary adhesive was contact cement. I wanted to make sure this sucker would stay together. The lenses are from a cheap pair of plastic steampunk goggles I bought online. I go into detail in the video about how I made the goggles, so check it out if you have any questions!

Photos by Headphone Studios and Hickekri Photography.