Mal from Disney Descendants Running Cosplay

So this is a post that is WAY overdue. This is my first running costume from my first Disney Princess Half-Marathon. Also my first half-marathon. Yeah, let’s face it, the only way you were going to get me to run 13.1 miles was with the lure of wearing a costume and the promise that tons of other people would also be in costume. The other people did not disappoint. The 13.1 miles was long, but I was with my bestie so we had an awesome time (and have done it every year since — we’ll get those posts up eventually). Also, I dyed my hair purple because I am that dedicated.

(She did not run in flip flops. This was after the race and she was already in chill mode.).

We went as Mal and Evie from Disney’s Descendants. For those not familiar with the characters, Mal is Malificient’s daughter and Evie is the Evil Queen from Snow White’s daughter. They are BFFs so it was the perfect costume for me and my BFF. Also, since it was my first year, I went all out and got the retreat package so I was SUPER EXCITED that Malificient was the character that they had a photo op with after the race. Totally perfect. 

Here’s a look at my total finished costume. It’s her costume from the first Descendants movie as the other two weren’t out yet. To see what I was going for, check out this Disney style article. I would put the image here, but Disney lawyers scare me so just visit the link. I’m really proud of getting a lot of the key details like the rivets, collar, dragon wing epaulets and color blocking just right, but in a running kinda way.

I went through oodles of swatches to find the right fabric, matching both photos and to my pants. The swatches above were the final set. The fabric I used is pretty much all (except the green) Mood Fabrics’ antibacterial and wicking polyester jersey. The green is also from Mood, but it’s some ITY stuff because I needed to match color. The green is super thin so it’s actually layered over extra purple so that the sleeves keep the same weight throughout and don’t have weird sagging issues. This jersey has a fair bit of body, almost like a ponte, so it was nice to work with.

The zipper is plastic or aluminum. It’s really light, but that was goal since I thought I’d be running in this. And the rivets on the neck and skirt are hot fix. Who knew they had hot fix rivets? Made my life so much easier since I could just place them all at once and then iron them. Also, for pointy ones I would have needed a special setter, so hot fix was definitely the way to go (and the way I will go again if needed).

The base of the jacket uses McCall’s M7482, view A. Above is my muslin. I actually wear the muslin all the time. It was very educational because I learned not to stretch the fabric as I inserted the zipper — you can see it’s just a bit short. I used the muslin to draft the dragon wings on the arms.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the process of making the shoulder wings, but basically it was a layer of the purple with a layer of power mesh and then I essentially did a pintuck for the bones. This gave the look I wanted and also added the stability to make them stand out a bit. I made one slightly shorter than other and that gave the layered look. I was really happy with how these turned out and would totally use this method again. Although admittedly not sure when I’ll need dragon wings again but you never know!

For the back, I found an svg of the Mal symbol on Etsy and then cut it out with my Silhouette. Here’s how the back looked in the end:

I also did Evie’s crown graphic, but that one was out of sticky vinyl because she wanted to reuse the jacket. I’d be happy to reuse it with a crown. But maybe that’s just me.

Before deciding to eventually go with the heat transfer vinyl, I did some tests of other mediums.

My original thought was to do a stencil because I often have a hard time with heat transfer on athletic fabrics. You can see some tests of a Tulip spray and a Tulip fabric paint. Both were terrible and just soaked through with very little pigmentation. So, heat transfer it was.

For my shirt underneath, I had a lot of leeway as Mal wears a number of different shirts throughout the movie so I kinda winged it (haha, see what I did there?) and did my own thing.

This one uses the Fehr Trade Surf to Summit Top which is pretty much my go-to running top. I just chopped off the top and did short sleeves. You can see above how it looked using the original pattern. And below after cutting the neck and then cutting a bit more. I was happy with it and the only adjustments I made were to cut out half circles from the arms to make the dragon wing looking things.

I used my Silhouette to cut out heat transfer vinyl for this one as well. I used the same design for the front so that I would be recognizable as Mal without my jacket on (which was good because it turned out to be a hot year and there was no way I could run while wearing that jacket). For the back, I designed dragon wings myself in the Silhouette software and layered the heat transfer to get the veins in the wings.

Pretty happy with how they turned out. This top was actually my muslin using some cheaper fabric from Joann’s, but it turned out pretty well and I was pressed for time, so that’s what we went with.

The last part of the costume was her skirt which is made up of various shapes of power mesh attached to the waistband from the Hey June Sloan Leggings to give it a rough, grunge look. It’s really hard to see in this photo or any photo because it’s black. And, well, black is just hard to photograph. But you can kinda see it peeking out in the first photo of this post.

Anyhow, this is one of my favorite costumes to date that I’ve made. Not only does it fit wonderfully and I’m super proud of the craftsmanship, but it also blends the look and style of the character with the function of running perfectly, at least in my opinion. 🙂 And I would totally wear this jacket as just a “normal” jacket because it’s awesome. Probably gonna “virtually” wear it to work for Halloween.