When the guy making your wetsuits is Shane Jones, no Halloween costume is out of the question. Tia Blanco’s choice this season was the one and only Minnie Mouse, to which her Orange County-based tailor happily obliged in what’s become an annual tradition of his. Actually, it’s more like an every holiday tradition at this point.
“Tia and I started working together in July of this year,” Jones says. “Tia approached me and said she loved my style and creations and I said I’d make her anything she wanted or could think of.”
The man has made a Clone Commander Gree wetsuit from Star Wars, he was a nose-walking leprechaun on St. Patty’s Day, Buddy the Elf for Christmas, a floating American flag one 4th of July and Evel Knievel the next. He’s also the guy who personally made a wetsuit line for world-famous fashion designer Thom Brown that ran for $3,900 each. And these are just a select few of the more than 15,000 wetsuits Jones has made by hand over the past 15-plus years now. He tells The Inertia this Minnie Mouse build put his skills to the test, though, taking 20 hours to complete.
“Everything had its own place,” he said. “The arm stripes, center chest buttons, arm cuffs, and even the golden booties I attached to the fullsuit. Everything had to be symmetrical. I had to teach myself to make the skirt. It took me 30 minutes of racking my brain but I figured it out and nailed it.”
We still have yet to see a neoprene makeover for a single costume or character that could stump the guy. So here’s the one and only Tia Blanco tearing it up as one of the most iconic and adorable cartoon characters ever.
