How to Dress up As Black Widow from Iron Man 2

Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow look in Iron Man 2 is actually pretty easy to pull off.

The costume starts with a staple super heroine jumpsuit. The one in the movie is a navy lycra with two strips of red piping running up the sides. A tight leather catsuit will do, though, and it's unlikely anyone is going to complain about technical accuracy when confronted with a girl in a leather catsuit. eBay is a good source for these, even tailored to your exact measurements, but if you go this route, get that part out of the way in August or September. A theatrical or ballet supply store will probably carry regular cloth catsuits that you could also use, and probably in a dark navy color. The main costume elements that are going to make you look like Black Widow are as follows:

Steps

1. Bullet bracelets. This is a very specific, and luckily, easy to obtain element. You could visit your local Army surplus store to get large shell casings, and then restore fake bullets to them with sculpey dough, but an easier route is the bullet belt available on Amazon.com and other costume stores. It's pretty cheap, it's modular, and the bullets look great. You can make two bullet bracelets from this with loads of extra to spare, and put them all back together afterwards for a future iron man  costume.
2. Red wig. Costume shops offer these, for about $20 - $30. You could also get your real hair dyed and curled but beware! A color like red tends not to work well as a temporary hair color; you'll have visible growing out if you do this.
3. Thigh holster and belt. With the popularity of Tomb Raider, thigh holsters are also easy to come by. It may be harder to get one for the left leg, which is side it was in the movie, but again, who's counting? The waist portion of the thigh holster should have 3 pouches. Decent versions can again be found at an Army Surplus store. You can obtain a cap gun online that looks close enough to the real thing. In addition to the thigh holster, there is a belt that sits higher up on the waist. This belt is broad, cloth, and has a plain silver buckle with the red hourglass on it. Amazon sells a "seat belt style" belt that will work, although narrower than the real thing.
4. Boots with 3 sets of buckles. The boots should be as low heel as possible, black, and were cloth or suede in the film. You can do fine with leather if need be. Each boot had a 3 rows of straps with buckles in the hourglass shape. Pet stores have dog and cat collars with the snap-together clasps that work perfectly for this.
5. Fingerless gloves and shoulder patches. You can find a close approximation to the black fingerless gloves at any store dealing in motorcycle accessories. S.H.I.E.L.D. patches appear on the shoulders. They are round, with a black eagle on a white background. Try your local Army store, or use liquid rubber if you need a cheap alternative.
6. Makeup: Makeup is simple, with a medium pinkish lipstick, and a good amount of mascara. That's it. Get someone you love to dress as Iron Man, and conquer the forces of evil together.

Warnings

• If you want this to look good, don't wait until the last minute.
• The pre-packaged Black Widow costume you can buy, this year, anyway, looks nothing like the movie version.