Victoria: When did you start your business, Three Muses Inspired Clothing?
Candy: I had been doing costuming on the side for a long time, but decided to make it official and get my business license in May 2005. I originally called the company “Three Muses” after me, my mom and my grandmother, but when I went to register the business name I found there were already several companies with the same name. I tacked on “inspired clothing” to set the name apart. I didn’t use “costumes” because I didn’t want to be pigeonholed to one thing. Costumes to me are inspired clothing.
Victoria: What was the first costume you ever made?
Candy: I made costumes with my mom since I was very little, but the first one I made all on my own was Aeon Flux from MTV’s Liquid Television in 1995. Wearing that out was an amazing experience. We hit every costume contest over Halloween weekend and I won 6 in a row. That was my first hint that maybe I could do something bigger with this costuming thing.
Victoria: Youve created costumes for some famous clients and even a Hollywood film. Can you tell my readers where your work has appeared?
Candy: My work has appeared in lots of random places from magazines to TV shows. The most well-known costume that pops up the most is the “sci-fi slave girl” aka Slave Leia. People will recognize that one from the movie Fanboys, where it’s worn by Kristen Bell at the end of the movie.
Victoria: You told me a story about entering a costume contest as Slave Leia that literally brought 300 people to their feet. Tell my readers the exciting tale!
Candy: I had been doing costuming on the side for a long time, but decided to make it official and get my business license in May 2005. I originally called the company “Three Muses” after me, my mom and my grandmother, but when I went to register the business name I found there were already several companies with the same name. I tacked on “inspired clothing” to set the name apart. I didn’t use “costumes” because I didn’t want to be pigeonholed to one thing. Costumes to me are inspired clothing.
Victoria: What was the first costume you ever made?
Candy: I made costumes with my mom since I was very little, but the first one I made all on my own was Aeon Flux from MTV’s Liquid Television in 1995. Wearing that out was an amazing experience. We hit every costume contest over Halloween weekend and I won 6 in a row. That was my first hint that maybe I could do something bigger with this costuming thing.
Victoria: Youve created costumes for some famous clients and even a Hollywood film. Can you tell my readers where your work has appeared?
Candy: My work has appeared in lots of random places from magazines to TV shows. The most well-known costume that pops up the most is the “sci-fi slave girl” aka Slave Leia. People will recognize that one from the movie Fanboys, where it’s worn by Kristen Bell at the end of the movie.
Victoria: You told me a story about entering a costume contest as Slave Leia that literally brought 300 people to their feet. Tell my readers the exciting tale!
Candy: That was about 10 years ago in San Diego when I made my first Slave Leia costume. I had never seen anyone wear one ever. Now they travel in packs! I don’t think the crowd had ever seen one either. I entered the costume contest and kept my robe wrapped around me the whole time until I stepped on stage. When I got to middle, I dropped the robe and spun around. The crowd went crazy, and right there in the middle of the contest the DJ announced “I think we know who won this contest!”
Victoria: What is your favorite costume that you have created?
Candy: All my versions of Wonder Woman. She’s my favorite character to do, but I don’t like wearing the same outfit all the time. I keep making different versions of her outfits.
Victoria: You also have a successful career as a model and have been featured in magazines like FHM. How long have you been modeling and where has that lead you?
Candy: I started modeling at 20, which is pretty late to get started in modeling if you want to do fashion work. I had the height but at 5’9” and barely 110 lbs, I was still told I was too “curvy” for fashion and the agencies sent me on swimwear and commercial jobs. I also spent a lot of time as a promo and trade show model. I traveled a lot while modeling, from one coast to another. I even spent a month in Cancun as a Bacardi spokesmodel.
It was fun for a while but I got tired of the constant traveling and was very bored of all the swimwear work. I got into modeling because of the unique hair, make-up, clothes…the crazy editorial fashion shoots. There was nothing very interesting about shooting swimwear. Catalog shoots would be the same hair and make-up and quickly changing in and out of 50 bikinis. So I started bringing things I had made and shooting that on the side. Then I started setting up my own costume shoots. I kept the regular modeling going so I had money to start my costume business. Once the business got going well, I stopped shooting bikinis and started shooting the fun stuff I wanted to do. And the fact that I was shooting it for my own business made it even better.
Victoria: You also have a degree in journalism, correct?
Candy: I have a degree in Magazine Journalism from the University of Florida. It’s amazing how much I use everything I learned. I couldn’t have picked a better major because so much today is communication based, but I should have minored in business. Instead I chose Cultural Anthropology. I had wanted to be an archaeologist ever since seeing Indiana Jones as a kid. Then I spent a semester cataloging pottery shards and found out it was not all about hacking your way through the jungle searching for lost cities of gold. I still love archaeology so I kept it as a minor.
Victoria: You recently created a stunningly sexy version of Harley Quinn. What was the creative process like?
Candy: Thank you! We were going to the Arkham Nights after-party and I wanted to do Harley, but not one that had already been done. I did the Arkham Asylum version previously at DragonCon. I figured there would be a lot of those there. The creative process basically was to go through boxes of costume stuff, pull out everything black and red and then assemble it as a costume. I added a few finishing touches to pull it all together and viola! I also made a matching hammer, which makes a fun prop.
Victoria: What is your favorite convention to attend?
Candy: DragonCon! Nothing else like it. The way it is set-up and the people that attend… it’s the perfect storm of costuming.
Victoria: Can you give us a sneak peak on what youre working on next?
Candy: There are several projects in the works, as usual. I’m re-doing my Rystall costume for CV6 and we’re planning a big cybergoth themed Alice in Wonderland group for DragonCon. It’s a bit of a tradition since my first D*C. We’ve done a wonderland group every year, but change it up a little each time. It’s fun to get a lot of people involved and do a whole group of related characters. So far I have a cool pair of goggles and boots. It’s the middle part I need to work on!
I’m also really excited about our new YouTube channel where we’ve been doing a weekly round-up of stuff going on with Three Muses called MuseWeek http://www.youtube.com/user/ThreeMusesClothing
Boutique website: www.threemusesclothing.com
My costumes: http://www.candykeane.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/threemusesinspiredclothing
Twitter: www.twitter.com/3musesclothing
I love viral marketing. I especially love viral marketing when its attached to a new Batman project. 
Batman fans around the world are gearing up for the 2012 Summer release of the final film in Christopher Nolans Batman trilogy "The Dark Knight Rises". On December 13th select IMAX theatres around the United States were screening the first six minutes of the film and you were allowed access if you knew how to get tickets. There were two showings at the IMAX theater; one at 10pm and the other at 10:30pm. My guest and I were in the 10:30pm group. We observed the first group as they exited the theater and became concerned by the expression on their faces. People looked confused. No shouts of awesomeness or fanboy freak outs. I found out later they were confused for a variety of reasons. After handing over our tickets and my purse being inspected for recording devices, were we given promotional t-shirts that features a bizarre design and simply says "End". No one could figure out what the design is suppose to symbolize (one guess was Banes mask) and theres no indication on the shirt that its related to a Batman film.
The prologue lasted only six minutes and began with Commissioner Gordon speaking at Harvey Dents memorial service. The rest of the prologue features some mercenaries being captured and boarded on a plane. The men who apprehended them are looking for Bane and it turns out one of the captives is in fact Bane himself. After his identity is revealed he breaks free. Banes objective is to kidnap a doctor aboard the plane (who, thanks to viral marketing has been revealed to be Dr. Leonid Pavel) and take it down. A second plane filled with Banes henchmen comes into play and in what was probably the most impressive stunt Ive seen filmed in the air, Bane transfers the doctors blood to a decoy before successfully taking down the airplane and making a getaway in his own. The last few seconds of the prologue are filled with never-before-scenes featuring a new Batman vehicle (or the Tumbler transforming, I couldnt really tell), a tortured looking Selina Kyle traveling in a car, Batman on the steps of a building during snowfall, a glimpse of Catwoman and finally Bane holding Batmans mask.
When the screening was over I came to the realization why the first crowd who viewed it were troubled. It was almost impossible to understand any of Banes dialogue. His heavy accent is muffled behind a mask and I can honestly say that I barely understood a line that actor Tom Hardy delivered. Many of the movie goers in the theatre said the same thing. One said:
