Project Un-fur-gettable!: A blog about how the talented makers of costume company Un-Fur-gettable turned an old fur coat into a new Cuddly Fox Costume.
The makers of the Cuddly Fox Costume, which won a prize at DragonCon, describe how they made it in detail on their blog. They even included lots of pictures!
The costume’s head is covered with fur that was cut from an old fur coat and then restyled. The eyes are made from ping pong balls that were painted white and then had cloudy blue areas added with a sponge. The nose is made from Sculpey, a kind of clay that hardens when you bake it. The teeth are made from polymer clay (Sculpey’s cousin). The ears are made from craft foam, which is like the stuff used for foam padding in furniture; it was coated in liquid latex to give it strength and make it look more like skin. The tongue is also coated foam.
You’ve heard of Un-fur-gettable, right? Well, if you haven’t, you need to get on board. They make fursuits, which are costumes created from faux fur and foam. They look like this:
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The company owners, Breezy and Tango (who prefer to go by their first names), started making their own costumes when they were in high school. Now they’re 25 and they have a small business with a few employees making outfits for customers around the world.
I met them at Anime Expo 2015, where I was lucky enough to see one of their creations up close. It was a cuddly fox named Roxy, who was wearing a blue plaid skirt and black leggings. The outfit looked handmade but extremely polished. Breezy told me that it took her about 40 hours to make using an old fur coat from Goodwill as material.
But when I talked to Tango later that day she told me some of the struggles they faced getting started in the business. She told me about some of their early projects that didn’t work out quite as planned (like this one:)
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As well as how they were able to
I used to have a fur coat. It was a gift from my great-aunt, who had received it in turn as a gift from her father when she graduated from college in the 1950s. I kept it in the back of my closet for several years after she died because I was afraid to throw it away and felt guilty about wearing it.
I didn’t know what to do with it until a few years ago, when I heard about Un-Fur-gettable , a company started by two friends who make cute animal costumes out of old fur coats. They were at an animal rights event raising money for the local shelter, and they had made some of their own creations to show off to potential customers. They told me that if I sent them my coat, they would turn it into a costume for me.
At first I didn’t think I would have time for all the details of custom ordering a costume, but the company has really streamlined the process since then, and I knew now was my chance! Since the purpose of Un-Fur-gettable is to keep these old furs out of landfills, they actually give you credit toward your costume if you send them your old fur (which they will use as “material” for future costumes).
Fur coats are not only expensive to buy, but they are also expensive to maintain. My mother’s fur coat had been sitting in her closet for decades and was in need of some serious TLC. It was falling apart, the leather trim was cracking and the fur itself was shedding like crazy. It also smelled pretty musty, despite my mom’s efforts at deodorizing it with cedar blocks and hanging it outside from a clothesline.
I decided to stop by Un-Fur-gettable to see if they could bring my mother’s old fur back to life and make it wearable again. I met with Alex, who is one of their costume designers and co-owner of Un-Fur-gettable Furs, which makes custom costumes for movies and television shows as well as custom furs for individuals. Alex told me that they could restore my mom’s old fur but that it would be a big job because the coat needed so much work. They would have to literally deconstruct it, clean it piece by piece, re-sew all the leather pieces, restyle the coat into something new and then add a lining so that it wouldn’t shed anymore on my mom’s clothes or furniture!
Alex told me that Un-Fur-gettable
When we come across a fur coat that is too damaged to be repaired and is no longer wearable, it leaves us with two options: throw it away or recycle it. Throwing away fur coats seems like such a waste, so we always choose the more sustainable option of recycling fur.
Our favorite recycled fur project by far is our Cuddly Fox Costume. We first got the idea for this costume when one of our seamstresses cut herself on an old fur coat that was damaged beyond repair and couldn’t be salvaged for restoration. She joked about how she felt like she had been attacked by a fox! We all laughed and started brainstorming about how we could turn this damaged fur coat into a fox costume. We decided to make the costume for Halloween and share our progress on our blog and social media accounts. This turned out to be a great decision! We were able to use the costume as part of a Halloween-themed social media advertising campaign. Our followers loved seeing how we transformed this damaged old fur coat into something new, cute, and cuddly!
The process of making the fox costume took us about three weeks, plus another week to photograph it in time for Halloween. It was definitely worth the effort! The best part was seeing how happy our
This week we were approached by a local couple who had inherited a beautiful but slightly moth-eaten fur coat from their grandmother. They wanted to know if we could use it to make something new for their daughter. Of course we could! We’re always looking for new and exciting ways to stretch our skills, so the chance to try something a little different was very welcome.
It was a lot like designing any other piece of clothing – we had to figure out how best to cut the fabric, what size bits of fur to use and where, etc. But it was also quite different -the heft of the fur meant that we needed a far more robust base than usual.
We ended up buying some heavy-duty corduroy fabric and lining the inside with felt. We reinforced the seams with extra stitching and made sure the eye holes were big enough for the wearer’s whole head! All that together meant that the costume didn’t need any additional support (like hidden straps) which is good because then you can see all the lovely fur when it’s on display.
The main challenge in making this costume was finding the right material – a material that would look good, feel good, and be durable enough to withstand the wear and tear of being worn by energetic children.
After months of hunting for the perfect fabric, we finally found what we were looking for at a local fabric store:
Fur Fabric!