Make Your Own Disney Descendants Mal Costume

You can make your own authentic looking Mal Descendants costume by following this DIY Disney Descendant’s Mal jacket tutorial for Halloween!

Do you have a Disney Descendants fan? Well, this tutorial is for you! You can absolutely DIY a fantastic Disney Descendants Mal jacket just in time for Halloween!

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Make Your Own Epic Disney Descendants Mal Costume

Find out how to make Mal’s jacket from Disney Descendants! Don’t settle for a store bought costume. You can make your own authentic looking Mal Descendants costume by following these step-by-step instructions.

I’m pretty particular about making our costumes for Halloween rather than purchasing store bought ones. Although, I totally buy store bought costumes for the dress-up bin on clearance!

You can totally make a Mal Descendants costume by following the step-by-step instructions below! 

My girls love Disney Descendants. They especially love Mal. They also wanted to be Mal for Halloween, both of them. We decided that they could be two different versions of Mal: Mal from “Isle of the Lost” and Mal from the coronation.

Charlotte (5yrs) was set on being “Isle of the Lost” Mal. This outfit was probably the hardest one that I made this year because it took some trial and error to get the paint right.

How to Make Descendants Mal’s Jacket

I started with a plain Girls’ Moto styled jacket from Target because purple is a pretty hard color to come by! The jacket I used is very similar to this Quilted Shoulder Moto Jacket for Girls. Here’s what the jacket looked like before I got my hands (with paint!) on it.

After I got the jacket, I read some online tutorials about how to make paint stay on pleather. The problem with this jacket was the holes. I learned that acrylic paint was the best to use and I decided to start there.

The Supplies I Used to Make Our Mal Descendants Costume

Painting Mal’s Jacket

First Attempt and My First Mistake

I started with painting the neon purple paint first. BIG MISTAKE. My first attempt at painting the jacket did not work. The jacket just soaked up all of the acrylic paint and I was left with a hazy black jacket.

I decided that I needed something that would create a larger volume of purple paint because I didn’t want to buy 10 packs of neon paint just for the purple one inside. I used sandpaper to buff the jacket and tried again.

Second Time is the Charm??

After using sandpaper to buff that shiny impenetrable pleather, I decided to use a flat purple acrylic paint to build a foundation. It worked!

I did two more layers of flat purple paint letting the jacket dry between each layer. This is the hardest part, so hang in there!

I let the purple paint dry completely and then I moved on to painting the pink and green neon portions of the arms. I used a picture of Mal from Disney’s Descendants “Isle of the Lost” for inspiration and painted the portions of the jacket by sight.

Drawing Dragons for Mal’s Costume

Let me begin by saying that I am not an artist. I am super creative, but I don’t really draw. If I can do this, you can totally do this too.

I started with a pencil and practiced on paper before touching the beautiful jacket. After several attempts, I used a pencil to draw the dragons onto the back of the jacket.

Add the Puffy Paint

Then, I traced the pencil with green and purple puffy paint. I let the puffy paint dry completely before moving on to the next step.

After the paint dried, I continued to trace the purple and green with the black puffy paint. I let the black dry and then I filled in the purple and the green dragons.

Add Some Glitter

Adding Metal Studs to Mal’s “Isle of the Lost” Jacket

After the dragons were dry, I moved on to the metal studs. I followed my picture of Disney Descendants Mal and poked the studs through the jacket. This was fairly easy.

I did it by sight and stopped when I felt like it was the right amount. I added them to the side adjacent to the green patch on the waist and to the right zipper flap.

The jacket was AMAZING! Charlotte was over-the-moon excited about her Mal Descendants Halloween costume! 

Complete Mal’s “Isle of the Lost” Look

To complete the Mal Descendants costume, we added some magenta leggings that I added holes to and put some lace behind, a purple shirt, and Mal’s necklace that we ordered online from Amazon.

I used hair chalk to turn her hair purple and she got to wear some magenta lip gloss for some extra Mal shine!

A Halloween to Remember!

Yes. That is a dragon pumpkin in the picture too! It glowed green at night for our little Mal. Charlotte enjoys wearing the jacket and the clothes throughout the year. The necklace also goes with many of her outfits!

I love that she loves her jacket! It’s soft and flexible and she can wear it in the fall for the next few years because she’s got some room to grow into it!

If you loved this project, please share it with friends!! You never know who is looking for an awesome Mal Descendants costume for their kiddo!

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