Santa is Coming to Town!

This has been a fascinating commission, especially as it has come so early in the year, but I have been commissioned by the Cliffhanger Café to costume their Santa. I have been given a request as to the main material for the coat - burgundy velvet - a budget, and that it be more of a traditional northern European look rather then an Americanised version.

After drawing up some designs and getting the selected design from the Cliffhanger I had a meeting to discuss materials and details and it was full steam ahead. I got the measurements for Santa and after a couple of fitting sessions and finally finding a way to deal with fake fur (though not without my house looking like it had snowed) it has now been delivered!

The coat is burgundy velvet, interfaced and lined with anti-static lining, trimmed in faux fur and decorated with gold trimming, the same for the hat. The trousers
 are the same velvet as the coat and hat. The waistcoat is deep red faux silk dupion, edged in gold bias binding, with embroidered holly leaf embellishments, gold buttons with hand stitched button holes in the same green as the holly leaves, and lined with the same antistatic lining as the coat.

Mulan and Moby Dick

A couple of months ago I was able to work with the brilliant Red Dragonfly Theatre Productions on their latest pieces 'Tom Jones' and 'Monkey'. Shortly after they left to tour, co-founders of the company Michelle Yim and Ross asked me if I could design/make/adapt a costume for her one woman production of 'Mulan' and make a pair of trousers for Ross's one man show 'Moby Dick' that are touring to Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this year! This was brilliant as for Mulan it was quite different from anything that I have done before as it involved armour. The existing costume consisted of a kimono, an armoured tunic, arm braces and boot covers.

 The problems with the existing costume:

- The kimono was too large

- The armour due to a slight mishap during a previous production was coated on the inside with a sticky/greasy adhesive that had soaked through the lining, so the lining needed to be replaced and if possible the previous adhesive removed

- The ties on the armour needed to be replaced with something more in keeping with the period and the rest of the costume design

- The armour needed minor breaking down as it looked very 'new' and while it was meant to have been well cared for was still meant to have been in years of battle

- The boot covers needed to be attached to soles

- A neckerchief and belt needed designing and making that would fit in with the costume 

I drew out several design options for the new costume and once I had the final design approval from Michelle I started hunting for fabric for the neckerchief. The dominating colours of the costume were red and black, with touches of aged gold, so after discussion with Michelle I wanted to bring out a bit more of the gold to break up the red and black. After much hunting I found a black and gold fabric for the neckerchief that was very similar to the band at the edge of the kimono. 

The armour was more difficult in that the unknown adhesive had soaked into the pleather too extensively to be removed, and so I decided to put a thick layer of calico between the armour and the new lining to prevent it from seeping through as it had with the previous thin lining. After replacing the lining I set about breaking down the armour with a combination of scoring and marking the plates to look like battle marks, and the application of paint to the red pleather backing to make it look more aged and worn.


I was later asked to change the belt to incorporate the centrepiece after a test of the costume on stage, to make it more visually striking. I took inspiration from ancient Chinese metalwork that I have seen in various exhibitions over the years and the dragons in the fabric of the neck tie.

For Moby Dick Ross has only needed a pair of trousers making. Unfortunately they were not able to get official photographs at the performances, however I do have an in progress shot of the trousers before hemming the cuffs and adding the buttons to the front.

Opera! Back to West Green House.

This month I have been back costume assisting at West Green House Opera working under Aly Fielden. This years operas were La Cenerentola and Die Fledermaus, they were fantastic to work on with some really interesting costumes to work on, including helping with the construction and decoration of a large bat inspired mask - to see images from the production look on the West Green House Opera website at past productions, I highly recommend it.

The Hills were Alive with the Sound of Music!

You may remember from January that Bournemouth Musical Theatre Productions newest offering to the stage has been 'The Sound of Music'. Now with seven shows done - including two sing alongs - The Sound of Music has been put to bed and it is time for me to finally write about it!

As with the last few shows the majority of the costumes have been hired with some alterations to be done and standard repairs during the run, however I did get to make the postulant costumes for Maria and the three other postulants, and also the 'curtain' costumes, the childrens play clothes, were given over to me to design and make. This has been a wonderful opportunity to again design a set of costumes for a large and well known productions, and unashamedly one of my favourite musicals from my childhood.

While I am still waiting for production photos here are some of the making photos! As in the script this is when Maria is trying to break the children free of their identically ordered and regimented existance, I made each of the childrens costumes slightly different in either colour bands or design. 

 Marta costume, completed                      Girls play clothes in progress

Red Dragonfly Productions - 'Tom Jones' and 'Monkey'

Over the last three weeks I have had the opportunity to work with Red Dragonfly Productions, a Lymington based English/Chinese touring theatre company, on their most recent productions 'Tom Jones' and 'Monkey', preparing the costumes for the show.

Tom Jones is an adaptation of Henry Fieldings novel of the same name, set in the 1800's between a country estate, an Inn at Upton, and London, following the story of the illegitimate Tom Jones and his fortunes - and misfortunes. The concept behind the production is that the players are at Henry Fieldings house for a party and as their entertainment are putting on Fieldings latest work, the majority taking on multiple roles, using found clothes that are in the house left over from previous guests and visitors, which leads to a range of styles throughout the 1800's. 

Thanks to a few costume sales and job lots over the last year the company had a large store of period appropriate costumes already available, though the majority required a substantial amount of repairs and alterations most especially taking up, letting down, false backs, taking in and additional fastenings. I also made two costume pieces for Tom Jones, a pair of military breeches for Ross - writer, director and actor - and a pink underskirt for the floral dress of Ainsley, our Lady Sophia.

Lady Sophia in her floral dress with pink underskirt

Left, Ross as Military with white breeches - Right, our 'Tom'

While Tom Jones had the vast amount more costumes and by far the larger amount of makes and alterations, for Monkey I made Tripitaka's hat, Monkeys yellow neckerchief, and made minor alterations to the 'princess' costume. Below are official promotional photographs taken by Mark Piggott Photography.

It has been wonderful working with Red Dragonfly Productions and I hope to work with them again.

The Sound of Music Begins!

The Sound of Music is the next big production for Bournemouth Musical Theatre Productions, being staged at the Regent Centre Theatre Christchurch from the 29th of May to the 1st of June.

As usual myself and Lisa, head of costume, are set to have a meeting to discuss costumes for the show, but not usual is the message I received the day before New Years Eve! With a promotional photoshoot being set for this week, the hire costume that was planned for use was unavailable, as was BMT's own apron, to make the initial outfit for 'Maria' in the shoot. Knowing the show and the film I knew exactly the look they wanted for the initial Maria look, the novice nun before she is sent to the Von Trapp's. The original message was to ask if I had anything that might be appropriate as it was needed for collection by the second of January. As I had nothing appropriate, I was requested to make the dress and apron - this is the first costume since university that I have made in less then 48 hours, and I must say I am very proud of it! 

As it was last minute no one had the performers measurements yet, so I was asked to make it to a standard UK size 10. This presented another set of challenges as again I have gotten to used to making costumes to measurements I had to look up the UK standard on the internet and there are a lot of conflicting measurements on there. I decided that in case they decided to go with the standard twirl photo, to make the skirt as well as the apron full and as close to a circle skirt as I could manage with the pleating so that it would provide the best effect on camera. 

In the event that we use this costume for the show and it involves quick changes I will have to make adjustments to the fastenings and the apron attachment, there is currently a zip fastening the dress and the apron is held with the traditional two pins in the top corners - in terms of general use though, if there are no quick change, it should work well.

Making the apron allowed me to try out a new pleating technique I had seen demonstrated online - using a fork to make perfectly even pleats - and it actually worked! This saved me an incredible amount of time in pleating the apron to the desired volume while keeping the pleats neat and even.

Hopefully soon I will be able to put up the photos from the photo shoot of my costume being worn. I am very excited to be working with Bournemouth Musical Theatre Productions on what will be my sixth big show with them, and I cannot wait for my meeting with Lisa to find out what I will be doing!

Christmas Costumes!

In the run up to Christmas, with no panto on the horizon this year unfortunately, it was suggested to me that I try making some Christmas costumes for sale. This is something that I have never tried before, having always made for either shows or commissions to a specific brief, and always to specific measurements!

At first I started making hats and scarves (after all, what is a being from the North Pole if not one that requires warm clothing?) From there I must admit that I went with the more obvious fabrics first, red tartan and other fleeces, with two exceptions - the first being my Elf-On-Strike hat! Not working to a brief I confess this was more inspired by the fact it was the first of the Christmas pieces I was attempting, right at the beginning of November and so I was not overly in the festive spirit. This is the first time I have attempted large scale hand embroiders, I was embroidering on fleece so I used multiple embroidery threads and a bodkin to make sure the embroidery was substantial enough to last without warping the fabric.

From hats I wanted to make full costumes, so I decided to start with elves - not the everyday interpretations but something a little bit different, and special. Having to do it to non-production specifications was interesting, I am so used to thinking about the production requirements when making a costume! I decided to do the elves out of synthetic fabrics with a lining.

Thinking of what makes an elf - the colours, red and/or green are synonymous in the UK at least, so that was a good jumping off point, as well as a bit of sparkle, it is for Christmas after all! So I started with basic shape designs, then chose my fabrics according to my self imposed budget. I had spare calico that I used to draft a basic pattern also helped by my borrowed dress form!

Another fun skill I got to learn from this was how to make frogging from cord. This is an incredibly difficult and fiddly process, and I must admit that if you can get exactly what you need online, it is worth the extra expense! However if you can't wait, or you just can't find the right colour of type of frogging you need it is possible to make it, just be prepared to fail miserably the first few times no matter how many different how-to's or tutorials you try online! In the end I knew the basic shapes I wanted and just ended up working with the cord until I figured out a way to make them that made sense to me and that I could work with.

Above - one of my first elves right before I added the buttons 

A fabric that in theatre I have never actually gotten to work with before is fleece, stage lights and hot theatre's not being overly conducive to hot costumes! However it is by far one of the easiest fabrics I have used, and I loved making this Nutcracker inspired costume below.

My Nutcracker, 1