INDEX: Cosplay Retail Merchandising Display

INDEX:
Cosplay
Retail Merchandising Display

Cosplay Retail Merchandising Display Fixtures

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SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS AND LINKS…
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This Cosplay Retail Merchandising Display Fixtures index page aggregates links
to all post and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Cosplay, a portmanteau of “costume play”, is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumesand fashion accessories to represent a specific character.^[1] Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, and a broader use of the term “cosplay” applies to any costumed role-playingin venues apart from the stage. Any entity that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Favorite sources include anime, cartoons, comic books, manga, television series, rock music performances, video games and in some cases, original characters.

Cosplay grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo‘s “futuristicostumes” created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City in 1939.^[2] The Japanese term “cosplay” (コスプレ, kosupure) was coined in 1984. A rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since the 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture in Japan, as well as in other parts of East Asia and in the Western world. Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions, and today there are many dedicated conventions and competitions, as well as social networks, websites, and other forms of media centered on cosplay activities. Cosplay is very popular among all genders, and it is not unusual to see crossplay, also referred to as gender-bending.

The term “cosplay” is a Japanese portmanteau of the English terms costume and play.^[1] The term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi [ja] of Studio Hard^[3] after he attended the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Los Angeles^[4] and saw costumed fans, which he later wrote about in an article for the Japanese magazine My Anime [ja].^[3] Takahashi decided to coin a new word rather than use the existing translation of the English term “masquerade” because that translates into Japanese as “an aristocratic costume party“, which did not match his experience of the Worldcon.^[5]^[6]The coinage reflects a common Japanese method of abbreviation in which the first two moras of a pair of words are used to form an independent compound: ‘costume’ becomes kosu (コス) and ‘play’ becomes pure (プレ).

Costuming had been a fan activity in Japan from the 1970s, and it became much more popular in the wake of Takahashi’s report. The new term did not catch on immediately, however. It was a year or two after the article was published before it was in common use among fans at conventions.^[15] It was in the 1990s, after exposure on television and in magazines, that the term and practice of cosplaying became common knowledge in Japan.^[15]

The first cosplay cafés appeared in the Akihabara area of Tokyo in the late 1990s.^[4]^[45] A temporary maid café was set up at the Tokyo Character Collection event in August 1998 to promote the video game Welcome to Pia Carrot 2 (1997).^[45] An occasional Pia Carrot Restaurant was held at the shop Gamers in Akihabara in the years up to 2000.^[45]Being linked to specific intellectual properties limited the lifespan of these cafés, which was solved by using generic maids, leading to the first permanent establishment, Cure Maid Café, which opened in March 2001.^[45]

The first World Cosplay Summit was held on 12 October 2003 at the Rose Court Hotel in Nagoya, Japan, with five cosplayers invited from Germany, France and Italy. There was no contest until 2005, when the World Cosplay Championship began. The first winners were the Italian team of Giorgia Vecchini [it], Francesca Dani and Emilia Fata Livia.

Worldcon masquerade attendance peaked in the 1980s and started to fall thereafter. This trend was reversed when the concept of cosplay was re-imported from Japan. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Cosplay costumes vary greatly and can range from simple themed clothing to highly detailed costumes. It is generally considered different from Halloween and Mardi Gras costume wear, as the intention is to replicate a specific character, rather than to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event. As such, when in costume, some cosplayers often seek to adopt the affect, mannerisms, and body language of the characters they portray (with “out of character” breaks). The characters chosen to be cosplayed may be sourced from any movie, TV series, book, comic book, video game, music band, anime, or manga. Some cosplayers even choose to cosplay an original character of their own design or a fusion of different genres (e.g., a steampunk version of a character), and it is a part of the ethos of cosplay that anybody can be anything, as with genderbending, crossplay, or drag, a cosplayer playing a character of another ethnicity, or a hijabi portraying Captain America.^[46]^[47]