Spirit costumes (Chinese: 灵装) are specially designed garments for spirit animals, classified as spirit items. They react to the owner’s spirit power and can transform with shape-shifting spells for a perfect fit in any form. Some costumes even come with unique functions.
Principle
Spirit animals frequently use shape-shifting spells, but regular clothes cannot adapt to their changing forms. Applying extra spells to clothing is inconvenient and drains spirit power. To address this, spirit animals create special garments from their own fur and silk that can change shape with the body without requiring additional power to keep their shapes.
Some spirit costumes also have unique functions based on the wearer’s traits. For instance, Leiting‘s costume can use her bioelectricity to power electronic devices.
Design
To accommodate spirit animals‘ animal, anthro, and human forms, spirit costumes are designed with specific cuts for each of them. Animal form costumes typically feature a vest with side pockets and backpacks to store personal items. Anthro form costumes often have vivid colors and unique designs. Human form costumes aim to blend in, so they look like regular clothing to avoid unwanted attention.
Material
It is best to use the wearer’s own fur or silk to make the spirit costume, with materials from close friends as the second choice. According to the karma hypothesis, the closer the material source is to the wearer, the easier it is to control the spirit costume during transformation. If materials from oneself and their friends are insufficient, materials from other spirit animals can be used as supplements.
Ideal third-party material sources include spirit animals that produce abundant hair or silk, such as wool, rabbit fur, silk, and spider silk. Each material has a unique property that lead to varying fabric performances.
Dressmakers
Spirit costume dressmakers are typically spirit animals who can produce abundant fur or silk themselves. To ensure compatibility of their self-produced materials, they strive to maintain good relations with other spirit animals and often play a key role in the local spirit animal association.
Dressmakers collect materials from other spirit animals to create a diverse stockpile of fabrics with various colors and performance for making the costumes. It is also customary for other spirit animals to donate excess fur and silk to local dressmakers, who in return charge only reasonable labor fees for their work.
Each spirit costume is one-of-a-kind, crafted from rare materials using complex sewing techniques. Even with modern machineries, it is still very labor-intensive. Nearly all spirit animals possess basic sewing skills to repair or modify their own outfits. Dressmakers also offer related training courses.
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