Coerced into going to Sheffield Comic Con 2014 I urgently needed a costume with limited time available.
Being a huge Matrix fan and being in need of a new suit, I decided that I’d get a white shirt, a black tie, some (square-ish) dark glasses, a tie clip, and a radio earpiece and just like that, a simple Matrix Agent costume is born. This was an Agent v1 costume from the first Matrix Film.
I’ve seen some fairly terrible Agent costumes, but I have an eye for detail and I’m (I wish only a bit of) a perfectionist. I feel I got the costume as right as I can without getting bespoke stuff, well beyond my DIY capability, made. Agent jackets have a gold lining and no breast pocket, and despite exhaustive use of my googlefu I couldn’t find any out there to buy. The original glasses don’t seem to be out there to buy either so long after 1999 but the ones I got were adequate enough for the task and had enough of the distinctive square look to them I wanted from the film,
Despite my reticence, I thoroughly enjoyed the day at the Comic Con and I was looking forward to going to more of them, but wanted a more complicated costume and so the idea of an Imperial Agent costume came about.
I really enjoyed wearing the costume, with the highlight of the day coming when I was waiting against a wall, in much the pose I have in the photo, and a gentleman walked up to me rather sheepishly and asked if he was allowed to use the toilets I was stood beside.
I did buy a cheap body holster to wear under the jacket, but those things really aren’t as covert as you’d think. It just bulged out all over the place, even without my airsoft Glock 17 in it (wrong handgun I know, but if the Glock won’t fit, a Desert Eagle .50 most definitely won’t)
It may be that “cheap” is the operative word here, but I can’t help but feel I’ve been lied to by all those films over the years. In all those scenes in the Bond films where James’ dinner jacket isn’t ruined by the unsightly bulge of his Walther PPK, I’ve come to suspect it’s because both it and its holster are in the prop box off-camera.