Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Cavett.
Hi Emily, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
From a very young age, I was always surrounded by art. My grandmother was a seamstress, my great grandmother a painter, and as a kid spent many weeks at my grandmother’s house, huddled around her sewing machine. One of my first memories of creative freedom as a child was being taught to hand stitch dresses for my dolls. As I got older, I started to experiment with a variety of mediums: painting, sculpting, sketching, and starting to make videos of my art and my life in general. I stayed around art into adulthood, going to university for media entrepreneurship and graphic design. Throughout that time, I started to become more interested in film and media, and eventually was introduced to cosplay online. I spent so much time studying around cosplay and costume design, and made my first cosplay in winter 2024. The feeling of not just becoming the character, but seeing my time and efforts all come together immediately had me bitten by the cosplay bug. Right away I wanted to go bigger, get more detail, try new techniques and push myself to different limits in every way that I could. It felt like such a perfect intersection of everything I had fallen in love with over and over throughout my entire life. Having the freedom to try new things, mess up and try again, and eventually be able to show what I’ve learned and share it with others has felt like such a full-circle moment from the kid hot gluing scrap fabric together.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I wish I could say it has, but the reality is that I am always my own worst critic. I think that there is something quite important about being able always be thinking of how to improve and what to change, but it can leave a lot of things feeling unfinished. I’m someone who can always see the flaws even if no one else can, which is one of my biggest hurdles. I have to remind myself that even if something isn’t perfect, if it is better than the day before, that can be good enough until tomorrow.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’ve been working for some time in a variety of areas. When I first started out, I was a fresh college graduate working a dead-end job, so I had to get resourceful, and part of getting resourceful is being willing to do it yourself. I spent a lot time finding clothing items from the thrift store and up-cycling them to get my desired look for a lot of my projects. I’d dye fabric, re-do hems, repurpose trim and embellishments, and spent a lot of time doing mock-ups with thrifted bed sheets. Having to use the resources available to me is how I got comfortable with styling my own wigs, creating props using items from the dollar store, and applying my previous experiences to try new things. I love using EVA and craft foam to construct large-scale props, and being able to hand paint details to make them look like they’ve come out of the screen and into real life. As I’ve progressed, my projects have gotten bigger, making things like the Kalina Ann from the Devil May Cry series, San from Princess Mononoke, and a duo cosplay of Kaneki and Touka from Tokyo Ghoul.
What makes you happy?
The community I’ve been able to both join and build around cosplay has been my greatest joy and inspiration in my life. I started my journey completely alone. I had no friends in this world, no support system, and majority of the first events and meetups I went to in cosplay, I was there by myself. Almost immediately when I decided to put myself out there and make friends, even though it was stepping out of my comfort zone, I was met with open arms and some of my closest friends that I have now, I met during the first event I attended alone. To be not only accepted, but embraced is something really special.
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