In the summer of 2015, Walmart sold some kids’ T-shirts in the design of superhero torsos wherever they covered. They had Spider-man, the Incredible Hulk, and Iron-Man. From these, I got the idea to make complementary shorts to have summer cosplay inspired fashion. I wore them for general summer casual wear, but mostly in which to play tennis. Yup, you got that right. People at my tennis club showed up in mostly white or whatever, and on the other side was a guy in what looked like a summer version of superhero cosplay, using playing in the style of the character. 🙂

The complementary shorts Spider-man were easy. They were just blue, as seen in my MORALES shorts post. The Hulk’s complementary shorts weren’t much harder. I just had to find fabric that could look ripped at the bottom, but wouldn’t fray like crazy on me. I actually had purple spandex in my stash so the HULK shorts resulted. Iron-man, though, was another matter! I was going to have to make shorts that looked like the suit, or at least close enough that they looked like they belonged together with the shirt! After a little scheming, I did!

Iron-man shorts front

The only thing that matched the Iron-man torso print was the Iron-man torso print. There was no way I was going to find fabric like that. As a result, I would have to buy two extra Iron-man torso T-shirts to see if I could somehow make shorts out of them, since one wasn’t enough fabric, and hoped something would line up since there needed to be vertical reflection axis symmetry to the outfit.

I bought the largest sized T-shirts to give the most flexibility. With my pattern pieces on tracing paper, I was able to position the pieces to see if I could get anything to line up. By nothing more than chance, something did! I only had to do the work to find it. I was small enough that compared to the T-shirt size, the pieces I had for my shorts pattern allowed for a fit.

Iron-man shorts back

Now, the end result certainly wasn’t an accurate depiction of the Iron-man upper legs on hit suit as this was just the torso pieces moved around. However, it was close enough in looks and alignment that it could have plausibly passed, as you can see in the pictures. I was even able to put two pockets on the shorts without losing anything in the looks, if you look carefully at the front view.

Together with the top, I have the Iron-man summer outfit seen below, in which I played a LOT of matches at St George’s Tennis Club in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. In the Iron-man outfit, I played what I called zennis, a portmanteau pun from zen and tennis, which is a relaxed and slow, warm-up paced feel style that could be mistaken for cockiness the way Tony Stark might be if he played tennis. However, zennis works well for me because I have better ball control, and can rally longer to wait for the opponent to make a mistake. And I am a little cocky about my speed to be able to run down almost anything. 😉

Me in my Iron-man tennis outfit

But I don’t play with that attitude or mindset, though. Just play like it’s warm-ups cause as much as I hate to admit it, when I play at higher speeds and intensity that I would much prefer to play at, I make more errors and lose more.

As for the outfit, it’s been a huge hit despite what some “proper” people might think of it. I overhear people talk about it when I wear it. The kids love it, of course. Some just stare in awe, and others come up to ask me about it. Sadly for them and their Parents, they can buy the T-shirt like lots of people, but only one person on the planet has the shorts to go with it. That is unless someone were to copy my idea now. 🙂

Gold rating

This one is definitely gold in my self-rating scheme for garments I design and sew! It looks great. Lots of people love it! Everything worked out as hoped and planned. It functions well, including having a psychological impact that great fashion should have on the wearer! It’s also lasted. I don’t know what else one wants in a garment! 🙂

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