Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle

Howl’s Moving Castle is a movie released by Studio Ghibli (the people who did Kiki’s Delivery Service), loosely based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones. The movie is, in my opinion, just okay. It was beautifully animated, but I wish they had stuck a little bit more to the book, cuz the book is awesome. I loved Howl’s costume in the movie, and decided I wanted to try making it. Normally I don’t like to dress as male characters, I’m too voluptuous to pass as a dude, but Howl is pretty girly looking and his costume isn’t terribly revealing so I just went for it. FUN FACT: this is the only costume I’ve ever made that’s won an award!
Construction. I don’t know where to start, really, this costume wasn’t easy to make. For the trousers I just used some generic Simplicity pattern and altered it to have a thicker waistband. I forget what pattern I used for the shirt, but I had to alter it a lot to look like Howl’s. The coat, though, was really tricky. I drafted the pattern for it first. I wanted it to be accurate to how Diana Wynne Jones describes it in the book, so I decided to make it out of silk. There used to be a fabric store near my house in Salem that sold white remnants of silk for cheap, so I bought a bunch and dyed them pink and grey with RIT dye. The “diamonds” on the front of the jacket were quilted, and that was time consuming and tricky. The lining is satin. Instead of bias tape, I used braided cording for the gold detailing. The wig was my old Ed wig I think, shortened. The necklace I didn’t make: it’s the official Studio Ghibli replica.

Photos by Lionel Lum

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