Eponine Costume

How to make an Eponine Costume really, really simply.

I am severely concerned about the lack of people wanting to dress up as Eponine because of the lack of details about her costume or pictures of it on the internet. I thought to myself 'this has to stop, the world should be taught how to make a costume because buying proper already made costumes like the ones above (which I guess you can buy if you really want to) are really boring and no fun all though they might keep you a bit warmer...

Most of these items can be bought at normal stores but that will change from year to year depending on the season but you will find them at an op shop if all else fails.

Let’s start from the head, shall we. You’ll need a brown baker boy’s hat. This may be hard to find so brown hats of this shape can be used. Also if you have trouble finding or have curly hair a piece of brown string/ribbon can be tied leaving the bow up the top, this looks very pretty.

If you desire you could make your own. Take a normal baseball cap and cover the nose part with brown fabric. On another piece (measured so that it covers the hat so it is a bit baggy) tie a knot or sew a button to the middle. Then secure middle of fabric to the top of the hat and the bottom of the fabric to the bottom of the hat. Love my drawings below, I hope that’s not too confusing.

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Next get a plain white Shirt. Make sure you choose one with a bit of character that looks a bit old, a Bond’s chesty is not the desired Eponine look. Scrunch the shirt up and apply charcoal and dirt to appropriate areas. Please don’t leave the skirt white it’ll look too (!!!!!!) white. Also a long jacket can be worn over the outfit as long as you do realize that Eponine actual swapped clothes with a guy and would be wearing male clothes when she wears a jacket. But I understand it gets cold sometimes.

Next take a brown belt. This should either be really thick or pretty thin. Oh it doesn’t really matter but it should have attention drawn to it. Eponine is supposed to only wear a piece or string around her waist (‘A string for a belt, a string for a headdress’) which would look good if you’re super thin. Wear it up high, I promise you won’t look too silly, a simple tip for teenagers is to place you’re hand where you normally wear your jeans and that should be about the right spot. Do you want to see another one of my drawings? Of course you do.

Next the skirt, this can range from knee length to floor. It doesn’t matter but choose a cut that's flatteringon you. If your younger go for the knee length because it symbolizes youth in the class Eponine finds herself in. this is because the child would grow and have no clothes that would cover her legs. As with the shirt apply charcoal and whatever to the skirt and also decide whether you want to cut in places. An affect that looks good is if you have a skirt with a petticoat thing to cut it so the petticoat is showing in some places. Gives it the two toned affect and also put some holes in the skirt that aren’t in the petticoat, I think that looks good. But remember you don’t have to cut the skirt. It’s your choice.

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Next we move on to the shoes. Always troubling to those who haven’t read the book (those poor fools’) is what shoes to put Eponine in. Usually Eponine goes barefooted but obviously that would be dangerous if you were going anywhere but inside your home. What is needed area nice pair of men’s boots. My brother had an old pair of steel cap boots when he was on work experience that would have been perfect. So look around old cupboards and in op shops for grungy boots that are too big for you, of course don’t make them too huge that you can’t walk.

I just like the way these ones look. I think you should go for dark colours. Don’t have any sock showing (I know it’s silly to warn you because you have too much fashion sense to let that happen but you know) but for comfort’s sake wear anklets

There are many ways to do makeup for Eponine and I will leave it up to your creativity. Don’t cry...you trust me, you know what looks good on your skin. But I do have a few tips which you can totally disregard if you like.

My number one rule is don’t make yourself look ugly, grungy and scruffy yes but ugly no. so stay away from black teeth and huge scars please. I know that’s more a "boy thing" to do but people might get carried away in the moment.

Try making your face look very pale and apply a deep red or brown lipstick. Don’t overdo the lips because you have to look sweet.

For eyes you can go either of two (and a half) ways. The sweet way or the evil way (mwha ha ha ha….)

The sweet way is to apply blue and white eye shadows. But go for dark eyeliner. With this method you should apply fake dirt (yes there is such a thing I was amazed) or charcoal etc to side of your nose, sort of playful, like you were wiping a smudge and it didn’t come off.

Or the Evil way where people cross over to the dark side mwha ha ha….alright I’ll stop. I look really good (not good but you know what I mean) with dark marks under my eyes. So for this look think vampire. Use very dark eyeliner being careful to smudge as much as you can and use brown eye shadow. You could also wet the eyeliner to look as though you’ve been crying or caught in the rain (either works).

The half comes in if you want to go half way between these looks.

Then apply charcoal to your arms and legs. Also you can tease your hair a little bit.

And there you have it a wonderful Eponine Costume, even if I do say so myself.

Well, at least you have the basics. Just remember that there is no one way to do eponine, be creative.