A Long Time Ago...

Many years ago I used to work for a large theme park outside of London each summer. At the end of each season they would have a big black tie ball to say thank you to the staff and everyone would have a few drinks and a good time.

Each year there would be a theme and one always stands out to me. As we approached the park gates 4 figures that would be familiar to anyone were waiting to greet us. Darth Vader with 3 Storm Troopers stood guarding the gate.

At the time I knew little about this but in the years since, I’ve come to learn they would almost certainly been members of the 501st Legion, a costuming group dedicated to the dark side Star Wars characters. Ever since I discovered it’s existence I knew this was something I wanted to do.

The main things people are often surprised to learn is that the costumes worn by the legion are not bought or old props but fan made. So acquiring your own costume was an expensive and time consuming affair.

Until recently.

Enter Anovos. A replica prop company started by fans, who now have a few large franchises under their belt1 and have managed to get a Star Wars license.

In around May 2015 I became aware of a preorder at a huge discount on RRP if you were prepared to wait until winter for delivery. In June I had the funds and so preordered what had become a bucket list item. I ordered my first Storm Trooper armour.

I won’t see this armour until December so why am I writing about this now? Parts of this costume aren’t included. Over the last few months I’ve been sourcing the missing parts, boots, a blaster and started working on a voice changing app for my iPhone so I even sound the part.

All of this is stuff I want to write about so I am writing this as an introduction to my journey to become a member of the 501st legion.

  1. The biggest two being Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. Both of which seem to have been well received by the costuming community, though famously delivered late. It also looks like they will soon be offering a Ghost Busters line, proton pack anyone?