Caitlin's Costume Closet
Captain Barbossa

"So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until judgment day and the trumpets sound?" Among the many highlights of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was Geoffrey Rush's gleeful, scenery-chewing portrayal of Jack Sparrow's nemesis, Captain Hector Barbossa. I shrieked like a little girl when he showed up at the end of Dead Man's Chest, and if you ask me, he was the best damn thing about At World's End.

When I was putting together a group for a POTC skit to enter in the San Diego Comic-Con Masquerade, I asked my husband if he wanted to participate, and if so, who he wanted to be. At first, I was a little surprised that he picked Barbossa instead of Jack, but now I'm really glad he did! Researching and constructing the costume was challenging, but very satisfying and a lot of fun. Plus, Jack Sparrow costumes are ubiquitous at cons these days, but there are hardly any Barbossas around, so he gets to be a little more unique. And he has a great time riffing with the Jacks he meets!

Our skit, a three-minute retelling of the first POTC movie, was presented at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con Masquerade, and we won Best Presentation for it! There were nine of us all together, six from 2005's Big Damn Heroes and three new additions, and we had a terrific time together. Eventually we'll have a website for our group, the PDQ Pirates, and when we do I'll link it here! For now, you can see a video of our skit on Youtube.

In October 2006 I was visiting Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida, and I discovered that they had the Barbossa costume on display at the end of the backlot tour ride! I took a ridiculous number of pictures of course, coming back several days in a row to study the costume further. I'm sure the staff thought I was absolutely crazy! I'm working on putting together a small costume study page, but for now, I just have a gallery of all the pictures my friend Kimmerie and I took. They're all high-res, but they're basically just straight from the camera, no adjustments or anything, and a lot of them aren't that good. Drat costumes that are entirely enclosed in glass!

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