Cinderella

So there I was scrolling on facebook when I came across Argosy Player's photo album Cinderella

It reminded me that I still hadn't done my blog post on it. I'd like to point out now that none of these photos are mine, they belong to Argosy.

Argosy invited me back to help costume Cinderella. Unlike last year I worked with the Supervisor to costume the entire cast. This meant making in an incredible crazy short period of time. We were told that the panto should have a 1980's influence but some things should just be left as fairytale panto (such as Cinderella and the chorus' daywear). The three characters I mainly took on were the Fairy God Mother, Prince and Dandini.

I was told that on audition day the actor who was cast as Fairy God Mother turned up as a bit of a punk fairy with Doc Martins. So my starting point was a corset and tutu skirt silhouette. As the character is responsible for Cinderella's ball gown, travel and arrival to the ball this made come up with the concept that she should be like fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. The Bodice is a mix of an 18th century corset and Westwood's classic velvet and elastic corset tops from her 1980's collection. The skirt was based on a more recent design where the layers of net are cut shorter and shorter at the back displaying a bustle of colour.

Princy. Simply based on Prince Charles (and Prince Williams) royal millitary atire. This make was a bit of a learning curve for me as I realised that you can't always adapt one pattern into something completely different. If I had the chance to start again I would have drafted Princy from scratch.

As the Prince was based on the royal family I couldn't resist the urdge of making Dandini like Adam Ant. During rehearsals the actor was appearing more and more like Blackadder, the Prince's loyal servant who really has no sympathy for the Prince and full of sarcasm. So here's my combination of the two.


A wash of colour from the chorus.