I LOVE the Back to the Future trilogy. It’s one of my all-time favorite movie franchises. Funny, heartwarming and action-packed, it has everything a great trilogy should have. My three favorite characters are Marty McFly (played by the ever-handsome Michael J. Fox), Dr. Emmett Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) and Jennifer Parker (played by Claudia Wells in part 1, and Elisabeth Shue in parts 2 and 3). So, it was inevitable that I would decide to cosplay Jennifer Parker, Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend in the movies.
So, I started off by buying the officially licensed FUN Costumes Jennifer Parker costume, which I found on eBay for a discount price (the costume usually costs around £50). It’s good, but far from screen-accurate. However, it worked for the time being.
The official costume comes with the blue vest, white shirt and pink floral pants, but Jennifer’s outfit has lots of other parts and accessories which aren’t included, for example the Reebok Classic Freestyle high tops.
So I went and separately ordered the other parts online. I bought a brown woven belt, a beige shoulder bag with a flap, light pink legwarmers, a white watch, a double banded silver ring and some Reebok Classic Freestyle high tops (hers are gray, but I couldn’t find a vintage gray pair, so I opted for metallic silver ones instead, which were listed as vintage).
I’m still on the look out for a better bag, as hers has a textured front pocket and two button (or popper) closures on the flap, but I couldn’t find one with both of those features.
I always make sure I have every detail covered when creating a cosplay, so I wanted to find some earrings like hers too. I couldn’t find any, so I got a few different designs custom-made by a really lovely seller on Depop (check out her shop here).
The only thing that I still needed to do was dye, cut and curl my hair, and the cosplay was finished! (For the time being.)
A short while after buying the FUN Costumes Jennifer costume, I found out the exact brand and style number of her jeans, but since they’re from the 80’s, they’re incredibly hard to find. The only listings I could find were on Depop and Poshmark, and all of them were sold. (They’re Guess Georges Marciano jeans, style #18015.)
I searched almost every day for about a year, with no luck. One day, I decided to check again, but I thought I wouldn’t find anything new, since I had looked many times in the past few days. I went onto one of the sold Poshmark listings, and, at the top of the page, were some suggested listings, and the jeans were right there! I immediately clicked on the listing and couldn’t believe I had actually found them. (It turns out they were the exact same pair as the ones in the sold listing I had been looking at, the person who purchased them decided to Reposh them.) I bought them as fast as I could, and waited eagerly for them to arrive.
As soon as they arrived, I immediately tried them on. They’re a size 31, and I have a tiny waist, so they’re a bit big on me. Luckily, they still work (Jennifer wears them tucked into her socks/legwarmers, and tucks her shirt into the jeans too), and I’m so happy to finally have them!
As you can see, they’re very different to the other version I had previously bought, but I still love those ones too. So, my Jennifer cosplay has one screen-accurate item now! I’m pretty happy with the cosplay now, but I’m still going to be on the look out for better replacements for the other parts, and I’m thinking of possibly getting the blue vest custom-made…
Poppy x
Pink Blossom Cosplay 