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.

A quick update

Man it has been a busy 3 months and i still haven't stopped. Just thought I'd do a quick update post of whats been going on that will eventually have posts of their own in detail.

So uni wise I had my Specialist Practice where I made a medieval king costume for a live production. In Extremis was how should I put it..... full of extreme challenges that I just couldn't turn down. It was an intense 6 weeks of making but was incredibly rewarding.

Next on my agenda was to get at least one of Katie Sin's designs realized and here it is.

                                                   (Model- Katie Sin)

1st time for me to use PVC properly for making costumes. Usually I experiment with the stuff and create a textured texile piece with it. This was a fun experimental make where everything I've learnt in cutting on stand, pattern drafting and making decisions for myself to make the design look better in real life came into practice. Now that I know how to make this dress and have a couple of rolls of various PVC colours and patterns.... there maybe a little series of this dress out coming soon. :D

And finally panto. Normally students take advantage of their time off for xmas and relax.... Sleep is for the wicked I say!

Argosy Dramatics asked me back to make costumes for their panto Cinderella that will be on at the end of January. But rather than make a one off piece for them.... I've collaborated with the Costume Supervisor by mainly "re" designing and making the principle characters and co-ordinating the chorus together. It's tough. I've got roughly 9 costumes to make by 6pm tomorrow for a fitting but I am loving watching my drawings come to life in fabric. If I managed to get a few pictures of the run I'll post the designs and costumes on here at a later date.

So that's my last 3 months in a nutshell. I have 1 week of "holiday" left before I go back to uni and start my EMP project... the last project before graduation. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!! Wish me luck!

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)

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 :)