Superheroes, Stitched Together in Spandex

On the second floor of a brownstone in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, Darlena Marie Blander lives a life that would be the dream of just about any 7-year-old.

Ms. Blander, 41, has two apartments in the building. One is decorated with lace doilies and dark wood where a cat loiters on the furniture. It is cozy, perhaps a bit dull — the unsurprising home of a soft-spoken human resource analyst for New York City Transit.

But Ms. Blander feels more at home in what she calls her “fantasy apartment,” a four-room shrine crammed with costumes, DVDs, books and “Star Trek” merchandise.

“I get out of my other apartment and walk five steps into fantasyland,” Ms. Blander said, opening the door to a room stocked with professional lighting equipment and a large piece of green felt tacked to the wall.

A table was stacked with photo albums of her in various costumes: as Supergirl, as Captain America, in medieval wear, as a mermaid.

“I take cosplay very seriously,” she said. “If someone’s going to take my picture in costume, I want to strike a pose.”

Cosplay, short for costume play, is a pop culture phenomenon that arrived from Japan, where enthusiasts wear outfits worn by characters from comic books, movies, cartoons and novels.

For Ms. Blander and others who are serious about dressing in character, a show opening on Thursday at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is the Super Bowl and Academy Awards rolled into one.

Over four days, the New York Comic Convention, a showcase for comic books, movies and video games, is expected to attract 115,000 visitors, including many in eyebrow-raising fashion.

Ms. Blander and her friends who share the passion have spent much time and money getting ready.

The convention offers people the chance to be a celebrity for a day, Stephanie Darius said. “People talk to you as if you were the character you’re playing,” she said. “They want to hug you, take pictures with you.”

Brian Ashcraft, senior editor of Kotaku, a video game Web site, said cosplay evolved from science-fiction conventions in the United States and the term was coined by a Japanese journalist.

“Giving the hobby a name helped solidify it in Japanese subculture,” Mr. Ashcraft said. “Its popularity exploded in Japan during the 1990s and well on into the last decade.”

And now, it has taken root in this country.

Peter Tatara, international content director for the New York Comic Convention, which is being held for the sixth year, said the number of visitors in costume had grown. Some dress in store-bought Halloween garb, but others, Mr. Tatara said, “spend 10 months making costumes by hand.”

The group Ms. Blander founded, the New York Cosplayer Network, falls firmly in the latter category.

She organized the group last year as a way to knit with fellow cosplayers. Members occasionally volunteer at orphanages and at homeless shelters, passing out party favors while dressed in superhero outfits.

But the group’s main purpose is to help members create costumes. Ms. Blander and Ms. Darius spent hours last weekend at Ms. Darius’s apartment working on their outfits.

Ms. Darius, 30, a security guard, sews many of the group’s costumes. For the convention, she put together outfits for Victoria Ortegas, 29, a professional makeup artist, and Elliot Cintron, 28, who works for the American Red Cross.

Hunched over a sewing machine, Ms. Darius, a self-taught seamstress, squinted at the stitches on a black leather mask for Mr. Cintron.

Ms. Blander was busy fussing with an errant neckline, testing the gravitational resistance of a strapless pink and red bodysuit that was to be her costume for Scarlet Witch, a character from Marvel Comics.

She has three more outfits prepared for this weekend: for the characters Power Girl from DC Comics, a gothic Valkyrie and Lieutenant Uhura from “Star Trek.”
Ms. Blander and others in her group said some would wear a different outfit every day of the convention.

Theirs is an expensive devotion, costing hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars a year.

“I’d rather give up cable television than costumes,” said Ms. Ortegas, who spent about $1,000 on fabric and props for the convention this year.

Sometimes, putting on a character’s wardrobe is not enough. “I put on 50 pounds so I can look more like Bane,” said Mr. Cintron, referring to the villain in the recent movie “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“There’s nothing like spandex to make you feel 10 times as fat or as skinny as you normally are,” he added.

Ms. Blander said it took her months to get used to some of the provocative outfits she wore. Her first superhero portrayal was of Storm, a comic book character clad in a white leotard that left little to the imagination. She ended up clutching her cape tightly around her out of embarrassment.

“People are going to look at me,” she said.

“They’re supposed to,” Ms. Darius said.

Although Ms. Blander is no longer shy about wearing costumes in public, she said most of her family and her co-workers at the transit agency knew nothing of her other life.

“It’s my private world,” she said. “It makes me feel mysterious. Like Superman.”