I suggest a separate category next time in the cosplay for people who didn't make their own costumes.
I think there was a seperate category, like "tailored" or something.
Anyway, the point was that the costume was cool, regardless of who made it.
I'd like to step in and say something: I was a last-minute judge for the craftsmanship awards that night (I was dressed as Belle) So while I may be off slightly in the details (I only had the 5 hours of judging to figure everything out, afterall ^_^; I tried to do my best and judge fairly), this is my understanding of Kumoricon's different catagories. There were 4 catagories in the competition:
-Child (costumes made by children or their parents, no official age limit, but we figured about 12 and under - we had no entries in this catagory)
-Novice (costumes made by people who have not yet won any craftsmanship awards for their costumes thus far - this was the rank most of the contestants fell under.)
-Journeyman (this catagory was what Link was entered as. it is reserved for cosplayers who have won larger awards in a previous costume craftsmanship competition, or are deemed to be of the same skill level as those who have)
-Master (We had no master competitors. the catagory was reserved for costumers who have won major awards (such as best of show) more than 3 times.)
The Novice catagory was in no way judged against the Journeyman catagory, and vice-versa. In fact, many more awards were awarded to those in Novice, than were awarded to Journeyman. The Best in Show award was designed not to be a competition between the different levels, but simply to show off what we thought was exceptionally good cosplay or was just darn COOL
(which you can't deny, those props were very cool ^_~) (an aside: Sometimes the simpelist looking characters can be the most difficult to emulate because there is nothing to "distract" the eye away from the form, fit, and accuracy of the portrayal of the character.)
I thought it was a tad unfair since her dad made the costume and is a professional costume designer and that it was made in 1996.
It has been mentioned in this thread that Link's father made the entire costume, but from what I remember when I spoke to her about the costume durring judging was that she was responsible for sewing the fabric parts of the costume, the design of the costume, wig cutting, adding wefts of hair and styling, boot covers, etc, and helped make the props with her father. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with getting family members of friends to help with costumes, especially since she seemed very honest about what he helped her with.
As for the claim that she made the costume back in 1996, I decided to do some
URL research.It sounds like she made a version of this costume for the first time in 1998, but then heavily revamped it in 2003. I'm all for revising costumes until they're just how the cosplayer wants them to be (That's why we (the judges) took so much time to teach the cosplayers we met in judging how they could improve their cosplay ^_^ Cosplay will never get anywhere if we all don't help eachother out ^_^). I think it shows long-term dedication, and shouldn't be something that's looked down upon - it's just another way or showing love for cosplay.
I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion and bad feelings I've seen in this thread, and I hope to see you all at next year's Kumoricon ^_^
-Rivenchan (the Belle cosplayer)
Last-minute Judge of Cosplay Craftsmanship Kumoricon 2004