Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

This set of costumes hails from season 2 of DGHDA, which takes place partly in a fantasy world inspired by children’s stories. Here be scissors cowboys, evil queens, knights with silly helmets, and weird rainbow forest creatures.

We made every effort to be 100% screen accurate with these costumes, to the point of matching the exact stitch lines and using Blu-ray screen captures to identify the exact fabric and trims used (and we managed to find some of them! Though it took some phone calls to warehouses and, in one case, a trip to NYC to actually get them).

Construction highlights for each character:

Queen Suzie

The evil queen gown was patterned from scratch and features over 80 yards of ruffles, all of which were hand-gathered by Alena (whose fingers still haven’t forgiven her). The dress is assembled of screen-accurate materials, down to the rose trim on the skirt. (Due to a shipping error the screen-accurate lace did not arrive in time for the costume’s first outing, but it was replaced with the correct fabric later.) The spellbook, handmade by Alena, is hollow and functions as a clutch purse to hold phone, wallet, etc. The crown and wand were hand-sculpted from FreeForm Air over a wire armature. The crystals at the end of the wand light up with LEDs, naturally.

Litzibitz Trost

Unable to source the original fabric (which was actually just a commercial shirt cut up for the show), Alena set out to replicate it, and spent two weeks mixing and dye-testing until she managed to produce an exact match for the fabric color. The two shirt patterns were modified from vintage 1970s sewing patterns, while the vest pattern was drafted from scratch. All leather and vinyl fringe was hand-cut, and some was hand-dyed. The belts were cut from leather flats and had all studs installed using a power drill and pliers, and Alena also crafted the waist buckle. Holster, sheath and pouch were all handmade from leather, some of which was also dyed to match. The horseshoe slingshot was made from a real horseshoe. The scissors sword was cut from six layers of plywood, sandwiched, sanded, filled, painted and assembled with a functional hinge. The hat was painted and distressed, and the hatband was constructed and hand-beaded.

Alena’s proudest moment: Making all the stripes on the shirt pockets line up EXACTLY. Not even the original costume pulled that off!

Panto Trost

After taking literally hundreds of screencaps from the Blu-rays, we managed to identify the exact embroidery patterns used for Panto’s Western shirt, and spent hours sourcing those from the designers. After a solid week of machine embroidery (and not a few mishaps, thanks to a cracked embroidery unit), Panto’s embroidery was complete! The shirt was made using a modified Western shirt pattern, and the rest of Panto’s accessories (belt buckle, bolo tie, etc.) were sourced from the same manufacturers the original series used. Sheath, holster, slingshot, pouch, scissors sword, etc. were all constructed by hand, as with Litzibitz.

We were joined by ZJTimekeeper as Beast, and Seeker as a Kellum Knight (wearing an actual screen-used costume that Alena bought at auction after the series was canceled).

Characters

  • Laura as Queen Suzie
  • Alena as Litzibitz Trost
  • Mark as Panto Trost
  • ZJTimekeeper as Beast
  • Seeker as Kellum Knight

Awards

  • Best Group Craftsmanship at Anime Central 2018 (Suzie, Litzibitz, Panto)
  • First Place in Group Division at Gen Con 2018 (Suzie, Litzibitz, Panto, Beast, Kellum Knight)