Ruth Wilder (played by Alison Brie) is a struggling actress who auditions for an unconventional role after a string of unsuccessful auditions for underwhelming bit-parts. When Director Sam Sylvia (played by Marc Maron) holds an open call audition for a serial role with the female analog of WWE, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a.k.a. GLOW, she finally finds a role that challenges her inner actor. The drama really heats up after Ruth has an affair with the husband of her best friend Debbie Eagan (a.k.a. Liberty Belle) and they both end up on the cast of GLOW. After weeks of frustration to come up with a solid character, almost by accident, she creates the in-ring stereotyped persona of the Russian wrestler, “Zoya the Destroya”.
Costume SuperCenter teamed up with cosplayer Uncanny Megan to create a step by step tutorial so that you can cosplay as Zoya the Destroya yourself! Using a comically bad Russian accent is totally up to you. Be sure to also check out her awesome Liberty Belle costume tutorial.
This cosplay tutorial will walk you through how to make Zoya the Destroya’s finale outfit from GLOW. For the base of this costume, I used Kwick Sew’s K3502 sewing pattern. I patterned most of the pieces ourselves, so have some newspaper ready!
Materials Used:
- Metallic red spandex
- Black vinyl
- Medium red zipper
- Elastic
- Leotard sewing pattern
- Two gold star patches
- A Gold button
- Star belt buckle
- Snap tape
- Velcro
- Eyelets
The first thing I did, was cut all the appropriate pieces out of our leotard pattern. Afterwards, I placed them on our newspaper, traced them out, and altered the designs to match Zoya’s leotard. The pieces were mostly the same, aside from cutting out a space for a bare shoulder and holes in the elbows of the sleeve. I also went ahead and lengthened the crotch of our suit since the pattern I chose tends to run a little short.
Once all the pieces were drawn up and cut out, I pinned them down to our metallic red spandex. You’ll need to make sure you’re cutting the front and back pieces out in the right direction so they’ll match up correctly! Then, making a fold in the leftover fabric, I cut out our neck piece.
I started our sewing at the sleeves. First folding over and pinning the elbow holes and the bottoms and then sewing the hemlines down. Since this is a stretch fabric, a zigzag stitch is required for sewing. This makes sure the stitches can stretch with your costume!
Before sewing the sides of the sleeves up, I attached our one shoulder piece together.
Then, taking the full sleeve, I pinned and sewed it into place.
Now that our sleeve was attached, I matched our seams up and pinned the entire side of the costume together, from the bottom on the sleeve, to the bottom on the hip, and sewed it up. While I was at it, I also pinned and sewed together the opposite side.
For the half sleeve, I hemmed the top with some elastic to help it stay up on its own and then sewed the sides together.
I also made a tiny band to cover up the top of the sleeve by sewing a small tube with our leftover fabric. This isn’t necessary, but does add a nice touch!
Next, I folded the collar piece in half and pinned it onto the suit. This was a little tricky because there wasn’t much area to attach it to, and I had to be very careful that I lined it up correctly.
Once that was done, I started the process of hemming the open shoulder and the bottom of the collar. Just like with the sleeve, I folded the edges over and pinned them down. Then, using a zigzag stitch, I sewed them into place.
Next I added our zipper into the opening in the back! If you don’t know how to attach a zipper, it’s not as hard as it seems! You just place each side face down, pin, and sew! Then, I you flip the zipper over, you have a nice clean line without any showing stitches.
Zippers require a special sewing machine foot called a zipper foot. If you’re sewing machine didn’t come with one of these, they’re very easy to find in stores or online! This foot makes it so you can easily sew right alongside the teeth of the zipper. If you’re using an invisible zipper, they make an invisible zipper foot as well! Sewing a zipper is best done with a straight stitch.
After the zipper was sewn in, I lined up the remaining part of the back pieces, placed right side in, and sewed them together.
Taking our newly sewn together back piece and our front piece, I pinned and sewed the crotch into place.
Before moving on to hemming the leg holes, I finished up the top of our leotard by hemming the sides of the collar and sewing some snap tape down. One piece on the outside, one piece on the inside.
Hemming the leg holes was just like hemming the shoulder line. I folded our hemline over, pinned it down, and sewed it into place. Before doing this, you should try the leotard on to make sure it sits how you want it to! If it doesn’t, you can carefully cut your leg holes to sit where you want them to.
The last part of the leotard, is the shoulder piece. I drew up a generic shape and cut out two pieces, one in red and one in black. I sewed a small piece of Velcro onto the red side before attaching the pieces together. Placing the pieces right side in, against each other, I pinned them down and sewed them together.
Afterwards, I flipped the new piece inside out and pinned the edges down. Using a straight stitch, I sewed the sides down.
Then, I carefully sewed our star patches into place with a longer top stitch.
To attach the shoulder piece to the leotard, I pinned it down and hand sewed a gold button through both the shoulder piece and the leotard’s neckline. Then, using the sewing machine, I sewed the flat corner down against the sleeve seam.
Now that the leotard is done, it’s time for the accessories. For both of Zoya’s belts, I used some black vinyl.
For the regular belt, I purchased a star belt buckle off of Amazon. Using this as a base, I cut out a strip of vinyl to match the width and sewed it around the buckle.
Then, I measured out the placement for three eyelets, marked them down, cut small holes, and installed them using an eyelet tool.
For the secondary belt, I cut a thin strip of material and added some snaps and the opposite side of the Velcro I sewed onto the shoulder piece. This is so the belt can be slid under the piece and be locked into place.
And lastly, for the headband, I purchased a faux fur ski headband and a Soviet Union pin online. You could also buy a regular Russian hat, it all depends on your preference!
The boots and hair is up to you, but I recommend using some lace up black boots from Costume SuperCenter! You can find a variety of brown wigs there as well!
And there you have it, a complete walk-through of how I made my Zoya the Destroya costume!
If you’re looking for more TV & Movie character costumes, check out the ones at Costume SuperCenter! And be sure to like Uncanny Megan on Facebook, follow her on Instagram, subscribe to her channel on YouTube and follow her on Twitter!
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