Sindy Sin

Okay so I'm giving the designing thing a go and taking it a little bit more seriously for once rather than scribbling an idea and calling it a drawing.

So these designs are for Sindy Sin and are currently unofficial initial designs. There could be a a few updates of designs with possible finished makes so get ready for a series. All designs are PVC and maybe leather based.

Design 1

Sindy gone corporate/military/uniform. Zips up at the front. Probably put together by panels. Similar to the naughty nurse outfits you can get online however there could possibly be a Sin Doll logo somewhere (sleeve/ corner of the slit) that can be printed or machine embroidered to define it as a one off piece.

Design 2

The Ring Mistress. The jacket is of the same style as my pirate/ring mistress jacket (see themed events label). The only change I've made is by opening the skirt panels and lacing them together with leather or suede ribbon/strips. Making the jacket smaller or bigger at any time. Leotard underneath the jacket.

Design 3

Sindy gone sub? This design is based on a drawing I scribbled in front of her. I am thinking that the corset would be made of leather or a leather effect kind of fabric and its a choice in whether to make the red stripes pvc or simply ribbon. Still debating if this could work in pink.

Design 4

The kitteh. When I first met Sindy she wore a leopard print coat and had a furry leopard cat hat. I wanted to incorporate leopard print somewhere in my designs so why not make her a Dead Sexy Kitten? Again paneled dress but the triangle of the skirt are sewn where the seams of the black pvc should meet up, which causes the skirt to go out. The tail and belt would be sewn together it's just a question of if they are fixed onto the dress or not. I have no idea if is possible to get hold of leopard print pvc. if there isn't this maybe my free time dye room experiment.

Snobs vs. Hobos

So whilst we were researching for Candide we watched Marie Antoinette. This inspired my friend to set her birthday party to be 18th century and like a sugar party. So she created the theme snobs vs. hobos... meaning that the costume crew would a beautiful rich 18th century costume to show off there work and anyone that couldn't make could tramp down as much as they wanted. So being inspired by Candide I made my own little created. However... my original corset didn't exactly work. So I improvised by using one of my black tops and made it look like a chemise and wore a corset on top. This did make me look a little more posh prostitute than 18th century snob, however I was happy with my creation.

In other news

This isn't really a commissioned piece as I don't get paid to do this but this group mean so much to me that I do it for love.

Okay so my old drama group "The Beck Youth Theatre" did "Our House" the Madness Musical recently. Go look up the story or find the DVD because it's too complicated for me to tell you and it would be a waste of this post XD

So as stories go some of this show takes place at a secondary school. last day of Term. Cue "Baggy Trousers." The costume supervisor (who just so happens to be my mum but it sounds more professional to say supervisor) called me up and asked what is the quickest way to create a school logo badge that is bold, clean and for as little as money as possible. My initial reaction was screen printing. So therefore I got the job in creating and making the school badges.

Influences

So as the show is set in Camden this was my first thought of inspiration. Most schools have some type of bold symbol to represent them so I decided to start off with Camden Lock.

(this picture isn't mine. I have taken this from google images)

I redrew the Camden bridge and decided that this would be the best place to put the initials of the school.

(again, a template i have taken from google images)

Then I started to think about Madness. as they were a SKA band the saxophone made them iconic. I was briefed that the school uniform would be black and yellow so this saxophone template seemed perfect.

Printing problems

A problem I stumbled across was when it came to printing I couldn't get hold of the right binder and i didn't have time to wait for uni's new binder to come in. i tried to screen print with puff binder. i could have got away with this plan if I wasn't printing a bright colour on a black background. All the colour sinked through the fabric making it dark. However you could still see the silhouette of the print. I decided that my only best option was to carefully hand paint on top of the print using a mix of bright yellow fabric paint and yellow acrylic paint. this plan worked successfully.

(my badge design after the acrylic paint job)

(Shannon Stroud modelling the Baggy Trousers Academy uniform)

Candide

Candide. A uni project that has taken over my life for the past 2 months. Originally written by Voltaire the story of Candide takes the Catholic philosophy that "despite all the evil in this world this is the best out of all possible worlds", throws a lot of horrific stories and adventures upon one man who takes this view optimistically and questions if this view is really true. Written in the 18th century and then turned into an operetta in the 1950's. So this was the show that was given to us for our Concept in Context project. Costume Designer Johanna Muessig was inspired with black and sepia colours as well as the obscene decorations the 18th century was crazed with.

My character is one of the women of Venice that Candide meets on his travels. They are essentially prostitutes but the Venusians have a little more class about them compared to other prostitutes Candide comes across.

Creating this character wasn't the easiest of makes I have had but then again I wasn't expecting it to be either. For starters the main dress is a sackback dress. This already makes my dress being a big make with the amount of fabric I had to pleat. This also came with the financial realization that my costume was going to cost a lot and that doesn't even include the designer's expensive taste in fabrics. But possibly taking Candide's optimistic view it was a challenge I was willing to overcome.

Next crazy task. There was a subtle pattern with the design. I tried to find fabrics with a subtle pattern that looked 18th century pattern style. i did find one perfect sample.... except from the slight problem that the fabric was white and it wouldn't dye so easily. So what crazy idea do I come up with? How about screen printing the pattern onto 6 metres of black silk dupion. What idea did the designer that I even more crazy to do? Stitching round all the screen printing. All I can say is thank God for Radio 1 and a fellow student doing screen printing for keeping me company in the dye room for 3 and a half days and a big thank you to my box sets of Family Guy for getting me through 2 days of manic sewing. Although i must say I do enjoy making crazy fabrics and doing this kind of textily costume stuff has made me think that I may want to go with this element of costume, whilst doing the odd freelance makes on the side.

Snood. First ever head piece I have made. Surprisingly a quick make too. :)
The back view of my costume. Told you there was a lot of fabric.
So there you have it. the 18th century in a nutshell. i have learnt that the 18th century is extremely time consuming as well as money consuming. I feel I have turned into the box pleating and the screen printing queen. The most iomportant thing I have learnt that if you want to save the environment the sackback dress is not the best way to go. I may be held responsible for a few trees after the amount of pattern paper I have consumed over this project.

Up to date- Comissioned makes

Another Up to date post. This time on the makes I've been actually paid for :) Not so many pics this time but I'm slowly getting there.

Yes I'm modelling a fairy dress but this wasn't made for me. This was made for one of my mum's pupil's parent. It was her 50th Birthday party and she wanted to be a blue fairy. This is why its a more subtle and classic fairy rather than my unconvential fairy makes.

My housemate Sarah wanted to be a naughty goth fairy for Halloween. After the "Rainbows and Bubbles" pixie skirt I made she asked me if Icould made a red and black version for her. The drew me a design and it's happily displayed on my wall. :)

My gay best friend is a self employed professional entertainer. This is a drag burlesque number for him to stilt walk in. As well as thinking if this costume was white he would be a swan... he does scarily look good in drag :p

I was asked to design and make a costume for Peter in Peter Pan. This was for Argosy Dramatiques. A recent design and mke that i am really proud of.

The Directer wa kind enough to give me a picture of Peter. Hoe you like the final piece :)

Up to date- Fancy Dress

Having a night where I thought "I know! I'll actually put something on my blog!" And what better way to start by costumes I have made/sourced and even customised for a themed event. Pre warning now. These pictures have been taken at the events so most of them are from a drunken night out and possibly on a camera phone too. This summer coming I am hoping to organise a photoshoot of these costumes to make them look more professinal. :)







One of my early and yet still proud of makes. I made this pirate coat and dress when I was 19 for the interesting theme of "Pirate Santa." Under the influence of my first Peter Pan costume job I went as a "Pirate Santa Wench Hoe". I hope you can make the same connection as I did. This costume has had so any uses since. Of course this is my main pirate costumebut this has also been a Viking Wench. Also the jacket has gone on to be a Queen of Hearts Courtier and a Ring Mistress. Many uses and happy times :)

My little black dress of doom I like to call this. Of all influences this idea came from The Saturday's "Up" video. I liked the simplicity of the little black dress, the killer heels and bright coloured pair of tights. So I decided to make this the dress code for my 20th. Seeing that being 20 is the start of being sopisticated :p. The doom part of it's title purely comes from the pressure of havin 24 hours to make it and how much of a pain it was.

A simple make but I still like it. As ou can tell it was animal kingdom night. If I got this theme night again I would want to change my top into a corset and have my hair and makeup more 1950's pin up style.

This was more of a customising job than a make. The mask I did make but the rest was just throwing the fake blood about. Fun times to be a Zombie NurseforHalloween.... I also freaked the crap out of my housemates.... win! :D

My take on Mrs Luvette. I have to tank VenaCava design for the patterns as I wouldn't have been ale to make this last year. This was for "Tim Burton" night at Sound Circus

Another skirt make. This is a slightly different take on Tinkerbell. Little bit alternative. I found the corset and fell in love with it so I decidedto make a skirt to go with it. Bit fairy punk syle which pretty much sums up me.

Yup you guessed it. I'm Alice from Wonderland. made this outfit for my 21st. The pattern for the dress has come handy since as you will later.

A last minute put together than a source but I'm still proud of it. This was for a black and red night..... wished I owned the hat.

A sourced outfit. I turned into Cindy Lawson for "80's night" at Sound Circus.

Recognise the dress sillouette? Same pattern from my Alice costume but what a difference characters can make. May I introduce you to the Floresant Zombie Princess Snow White. This concept came from my friend Becki's birthday theme of "Gates of Hell." This implied of possible characters or people you'd met in hell. I chose Snow White because after watching Snow White again in my 20's.... she is one annoying character who desserves to be in hell. Bit of a shame seing that I wanted to be Snow White as a child. As for the floresantness.... I had just cut and dyed my hair pink so I needed a way of making my hair fit with the costume lol

We are now at the start of my 2nd year at uni. So what happens? The costume crew hold a Lady Gaga vs. Brittany Spears night. Natrually Lady Gaga suits me better and I took an outfit from "Telephone" video. This was one random and fun make. A dress from bin liners and glasses out of ciggerettes. Me wants another night like this!!!!

Customising time again! I made my trilby just that little bit more interesting for "Crazy Hat Night"

For my friend's theme "Rainbows and Bubbles". When you have tons of spare fabric what is the best way to use it? Make a pretty pixie rainbow skirt :D

Not much of a source but what do you think of my Time Warper costume for "Rocky Horror"?

Zombie Tinkerbell..... Thisis a Tinkerbell outfit I made originally for another party. But I wasn't happy with the corset. So I ripped it up and threw blood over the rips and bam!..... Zombie Tinkerbell.... :p

This isn't the best picture but this is my cow dress. A Simplish make where the fabric is the star of the show.

2nd Attempt at my Tinkerbell corset. Still not happy as the corset shredded during the night but it looks prettier than the first.

Introduction

Lucy. AKA Tinkerbell. Also known as Lulu, but further known as Chugapug.

Giving this a second go as my first blog had nothing more than an introduction and I fogot my adress. Also having a blog is now part of a uni unit. So hear goes take two! XD

I'm a costume student at the AUCB. I'm currently making a sackback dress from the 18th century so if your that lucky and worth it I may put some pics of the final piece on here.
What else can you expect? Well apart from my Self Directed Project stuff I make a lot of random and crazy fancy dress outfits for parties and events so I will get round to posting pics up. I have also designed and made ballet costumes for kids between the ages of 3-8 years. For child safety reasons (and because I just don't want to get into trouble) I'm not posting pics of these costumes up.... but I will hunt around for the designs at least. What else.... hmmm.... be warned for some crazy and purely bizzare posts of costume thoughts and.... well just random thoughts altogether.

Right I'm off. Got a costume to sort out! Hope I haven't made you bored already XD

Tinks