Nic's Fursuit Page -- Notes on Zippers

Obscuring Openings: Tips for Zips

When constucting a show-quality costume, one thing that is often a difficulty is concealing the openings of the costume. It should not be apparent to an observer how the costume is donned, the costume's character should simply exist in a perpetual present tense in the minds of the audience. Visible zippers or fasteners can dispell the illusion.
What follows is one (proven) method for concealing large zippers on a sewn suit costume. This tip is courtesy of Oncilla and Farallon. The following are descriptions from Oncilla's creation of her fursuit.

Note: Pictures of the Oncilla costume, and possibly even of the zipper assembly, will be coming soon.

1. Sew the rest of the costume

The whole body was built and sewn first as a unit; the white chest/belly piece was added afterwards. This meant that I had a lot of flexibility with the amount of fur around the zipper.
After figuring out how the foam chest insert would be placed, I built the white furred frontispiece fit to the insert and with largish seam allowances to be fit into the body. I cut the chest from the cream furred body suit and pinned in the white piece. (Note: I am leaving out the hours of measuring pinning and frustration it took to get the right bits cut from the body and the whole thing more or less fitted).
I decided I wanted the zipper on the left side of the chest, so I sewed the bulk of the white piece into the body using normal seams. The fully attached edge runs from the right neck, curving down to the groin.

2. Attach the zipper

I carefully fitted how the left side would look and marked the zipper line on the fur backing. The white fur is tucked under the cream fur, which is how the zipper gets hidden. Theoretically, the width of the overlap should be more or less constant, but reality rarely coincides with theory. Where the white fur went under the cream fur, I had to clip the white fur down to the fabric to allow the zipper and velcro to be added.
The zipper was sewn in place. On the white piece, the zipper was sewn right at the edge of the shaved white fur, so that the teeth extended beyond the fur backing. On the cream piece, the zipper was sewn in so there would be enough overlap between the piece to allow for the velcro.

                  outside the suit
                                                       Z = zipper
     cream fur ----ZZZZZ---------
                   ZZZZZ--------------- white fur
                        \_______/
                        3/4" - 2"
                         Overlap

3. Attach the Velcro

Velcro is used at the edge of the upper layer of fur. This holds the edge down and hides the seam, while the zipper handles the stress on the seam.
The next step in assembly is to sew in the Velcro. On the white fur, it went in between the zipper and the non-shaved fur, facing outwards. This is the fuzzy piece of velcro, so it doesn't catch the neighboring fur. The velcro strip is set flush with the non-shaved fur. On the cream piece, the hooked part of the velcro was sewn onto the back side of the fur. It goes flush with the edge of the fur.

                  outside the suit
                                                       Z = zipper
     cream fur ----ZZZZZ----VVVVV                      V = Velcro
                   ZZZZZ----VVVVV------ white fur

                 inside the suit

4. Final Touches

On the Oncilla costume, the zipper runs from the upper chest on the left side, down almost to the groin. The velcro runs the length of the zipper, but continues further up the chest to the neckline.
Once the zipper and velcro seal was completed, I finished sweing up the rest of the groin, as there was a small open section which I left unsewn while I positioned the zipper.