I agonized for *months* over what to wear to the Silver Millennium Masquerade Ball. I didn't want to wear Sailor Mars's manga princess gown, as I was sure at least one if not a few other people would go with that choice. Silver Millennium Princess Mars would have been nice, but it, and the Art Nouveau outfit, are too short to be considered "black tie". I looked at dozens of red ballgowns online, but none of them spoke to me. It wasn't until Doc brought me back a metric ton of Sailor Moon goodies from Japan that I found my answer: one of the tchotchkes was a Sailor Mars barrette that featured an image of Mars in a beautiful gown that I had never seen before, and the artwork looked like Crystal's style rather than the 90s anime. It turned out Tsutaya Books, a massive bookstore in Japan, had teamed up with Sailor Moon Crystal to make princess themed merchandise. It was perfect.

For this costume, I went back to the seamstress who had made my very first ever Sailor Mars costumes, Setsuna Kou. She found the most *beautiful* ombre silk charmeuse fabric, and made me the choker, hair clip, and corsage to match. While not technically part of the source material, I also found a Venetian rose gold filigree half-face mask with rhinestones, and as luck would have it, found rose gold ballet flats (YAY for comfort! Especially for a night of dancing) at Charlotte Russe.