Somehow or other, Magic Knight Rayearth has ended up becoming a staple of OPIB cosplay.  While all of us love doing "alternate versions" of popular characters (as evidenced by the fact that we did a fairly obscure artbook image first, and their "other worlds" outfits second), when we realized that up until the Magic Knights reach their full potential, they're wearing evolving levels of armor over their school uniforms, well, it made sense to do the school uniforms "first", and to add bits of armor to it over the next few years.  Lady Terentia and Reinii reprised their roles as Fuu and Hikaru respectively, and Avian Firefly made Primera's "pop star" costume from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles.  And since Bev had made my previous two Umi costumes, I begged her to take this one on as well.

Since my first Umi wig was the perfect color but had gotten sadly tangled due to my own stupidity in trying to wear it home on the train after Otakon 2007, I bought another of the same wig from the same seller on eBay.  Bev made the jacket, the skirt, the tie, and the headband, and after years of Catholic high school I already had the perfect white blouse to go with it, as well as black tights and a pair of black boots (which I realized had seen better days after I put them on and the soles were flapping at the heels).  My one regret was getting a tan over July of 2010; while it looked great with my white bathing suit, it looked terrible with the baby blue colors of Umi.  I'd love to do a photoshoot in this costume once I'm back to Casper-pale again, but at the very least I'm looking forward to wearing again with the first of the Magic Knights' armor next year.