This is the second post about building a Seven of Nine from Star Trek Picard cosplay. The first post, about building the hand prosthetic, can be found here. As frustrating as making the hand was, fixing the jacket was arguably worse but for a different reason.

I can sew. I have a sewing machine and it works well but I’m not great at it, so there was no way I was going to try to make a leather jacket. After much dithering between different websites, I ended up choosing to purchase the jacket from NYCJackets.com. I’m not saying this to give them more business, but so that in case anyone is looking to make a purchase, so you’ve been warned about the extra work you’ll have to do.

First red flag: all of the images on the website were promo shots or screenshots from the show.

Second red flag: I should have noticed, but did not notice, that the color of the jacket is listed as maroon. And while the jacket in the show may have a maroon or burgundy undertone, it is NOT a maroon jacket.

What should have been a green flag but was not: They reached out to me right after I ordered a size Medium and told me to make sure my waist measurements were correct because if they weren’t the jacket won’t zip because there’s no stretch. Fair enough, and based on this I changed my order to a large, even though I was never planning to zip the jacket and larges tend to be too big on me across the board.

Unfortunately, when the jacket came, it was far too big and ended up looking baggy instead of structured, which would have been disappointing by itself. But even worse was that the jacket was also RED. It was a shade of red just slightly darker than Michael Jackson’s Thriller jacket, which is nothing close to maroon. To fix it, I had to learn some handy new skills: stripping leather dye, dyeing leather and sealing the re-dyed leather.

Stripping for Fun and Profit

I neglected to snap a pic before I started stripping the color from the leather. After a lot of research on products and technique, I ended up going with Angelus Preparer and Deglazer, which strips the dye and removes the finish from the leather. I ended up finding an online shop that sold it by the pint and it took 1.5 pints to go over the entire jacket twice. Through trial and error I found that using Magic Erasers worked better than rags, considering the coverage I needed, that chemical-resistant gloves were a necessity and that a respirator came in handy, even though I was working outdoors.

Here’s what the jacket looked like after my first pass with the deglazer (though it took two passes with the deglazer to lighten the jacket to the point where I felt comfortable enough to add the new dye):

How to Dye

I used Angelus dark brown leather dye for this part. It took two and a half bottles to do two passes on the jacket, plus a little extra on seams and folds. Here’s what it looked like with one coat. As you can see, the red is a little lighter and duller and the brown covered it nicely.

I was able to complete perhaps 75% of the jacket with the first bottle of dye. Did I use too much? Probably, and because I hadn’t anticipated how much it would take, I ended up taking a week long break as I waited for the new dye to arrive.

I completed both passes, using almost all of the dye, then let it dry for two days before applying this spray leather sealer to for shine and protection.

The Finished Product

And a little of the detail:

I’m pleased with how it turned out. Interestingly, the amount of fluid that went through the leather during the deglazing and dyeing ended up shrinking it somewhat, which I didn’t mind since it was already too big. I wish it would have shrunk more uniformly, but I was really just happy I wasn’t going to be cosplaying a Thriller/Star Trek crossover.

And here’s the entire cosplay in action, with a fellow Seven of Nine, Voyager-style.

Until next time: Live long and prosper!