The World Cosplay Summit 2007 brought many surprises among the participants. Some traditional performances could be seen, as well as more elaborated ones, and also some unexpected ones. In this last category, frech team, composed by Damien Ratte and Isabelle Jeudy, demonstrated their commitment to show the japanese audience how tuned the european can be to the oriental pop culture concepts.

With a very well prepared performance, that pleased the japanese audience, Frech has proved that a great performance can provide a pleasing and fun experience, not only the cosplayers, but also the general public.

Cosplayers.net has interviewed WCS 2007 champions Damien and Isabelle, and asked them about this experience.

1 – Let's start talking a little bit about youtselves. Could you tell us who are Damien Ratte and Isabelle Jeudy? How old are you? If you study/work, what are your occupations and your hobbies?

Damien: Alright. Let's go. I am Damien Ratte (but everybody call me DamDam), and I'm 22. I am studying in a French cinema high-school since 2 years now. I live in Rennes, in the West part of France. It's always raining and it's cold, so I can stay home playing video-game! I'm crazy about video-games, especially rythm-games (all Bemani, Pop'n'music and DanceDance Revolution the most). I also like cinema (Marx Brothers and Monty Python are my gods), japanimation (Evangelion, Metropolis, Macross, many other...) manga (Kimengumi, Angel Sanctury, Dragon Ball, City Hunter, many many other...), hentaï (Bible Black, Urotsukidoji, Servant Princess, cross-over, and so many other...), music (Ska, Dance, Power-Metal, Piano, Bemani Music, Techno Hard-Core, Sharpnelsound, etc.....and when Iam writing this I am listening to Mago De Oz), and I also like going out, do stupid things with my friends, do video clips, short movies, and....oh yeah, I am also a cosplayer!

Isabelle:  Hello, my name is Isabelle Jeudy. I am 21 years old and I am reading philosophy at university.
I like to live, to write, to create clothes and costumes, to make photography and video, to draw, to play video games, to discover new things happening around the world, to read and to travel. I am interested in many things such as economy, cinema, photography, old data processing, 3D video, fashion, literature, forein languages and grammar, electro music, calligraphy and sculpture. I write fictions, I make cosplays and I play in Damien's short movies.

2 – For how long have you been cosplaying? How did you start?

Damien: I am cosplaying since only 2 years now (maybe a little bit more), I started with Isabelle when we met together.

Isabelle:  I started cosplay two years ago, in september, 2005. I originally started in order to get closer to Damien (and it seems to have worked...) but also because I wanted to for years.
I became interested in fashion very early, at 11 I was used to reproducing all by myself costumes from films, video games or artists that I liked and then to wear and photograph them. I discovered Japanese pop aesthetic at 13 and I heard about Sunday cosplayers' meeting at Harajuku. This is the way I discovered cosplay. For a long time I thought it only happened in the U.S. and in Japan. But when I started to learn Japanese (at 15), I discovered that there were conventions and cosplay also in France. So I decided to try one day.
But it was only four years later when I got the opportunity, in September, 2005, I was 19. Some cosplayers offered me and Damien to go with them to a convention. I made a costume from the visual kei band Lareine in three weeks (which was not very easy...). Finally I won the first prize of the contest, I travelled across Paris on the underground train in a huge red dress, I was interviewed by French TV and even some policemen took pictures of my costume! I thought that only cosplay could bring such incredible situations and I liked this atmosphere. So I decided to continue!

3 – Could you give a list of your costumes up to date? And what cosplay of yours do you guys like the most, and why?

Damien: I did 8 cosplays:

• Testament and Bridget from Guilty Gear XX
• Amitie from Puyo Pop Fever
• Phyria from Slayers
• Rothy from Magnacarta
• Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh
• Tsugiri from Alichino
• Gundam K.R.O. from G33K0T4K episode 1

The 3 cosplays I like the most are Amitie, because I always do stupid things with it, Rothy because it's....sexy? Yes, I suppose, and the Gundam Kro, because it my last cosplay!

Isabelle: Presently (october, 2007), I've got 13 costumes. In the chronological order they are:

• Machi (Lareine/Versailles no Bara – visual kei)
• Mana (Malice Mizer/Voyage sans retour – visual kei)
• Kozi (Malice Mizer – visual kei)
• Mrs. Accord (Puyo Pop Fever – vídeo game)
• (Morning Musume/Renai Revolution 21 – jpop)
• Amila (Magna Carta Crimsom Stigmata – video game)
• Yukari Sensei (Azumanga Daioh – animê)
• Murasaki (Pop’n’music – vídeo game)
• Perfume (Tsukiji Neo – artwork japonês)
• Stone Golem (Slayers – anime)
• Margareta La Sirena (Pilgrim Jager – mangá)
• Meryl (Megal Gear Solid – vídeo game)
• Myoubi (Alichino – mangá)

And I also made 5 costumes for other people.
The ones I wore during WCS were Machi, Murasaki and Myôbi. Damien also wore Margareta.
It's very difficult to say wich one I prefer, I'll say that my favorites are : Machi, Amila, Murasaki, Perfume, Margareta and Myôbi. Because I lived through a lot of adventures with them.

4 – Do you craft/sew your costumes by yourselves? Which type of costumes do you like the best? Do you choose your characters more based on visual appeal or personality?

Damien: Of course I do. Isabelle help me a lot, because I am not as good as her...but I try anyway! I like funny cosplays the best, because...I'm not very serious in life, so I feel like it! But as our performances in France are always very disconnected with the anime or video game we are cosplaying, sometimes I prefer a good visual appearance (like Rothy, which is my favourite cosplay), because I know I can do a performance at the very very opposite!

Isabelle: Of course I sew and craft by myself ! I even make other people's costumes. And since I always got very precise ideas about what and how I want to do, it would be difficult to let someone else work instead of me... It happened twice already that I let a friend do very easy needlework for me because I was in a terrible hurry before a convention, with several costumes to make for other people. But for my own costumes I always make them by myself.
About the choice of a character... One point to stress is that visual aspect is often linked to the character's personality (e.g. Mrs Accord looks like a teacher, Amila has an evil appearance...). So most of the time the choice is based on both of the two aspects. For me a character is defined as much by its visual aspect as by its personality.
However I made my visual kei and artwork costumes only because I love the way they look, because a musician is a real person and an artwork is not really a character so I can't rely on any "personality aspect".