Costume Showcase, WOW, Minerva gallery

Costume Showcase
Showcases the graduating costumiers' major works and other exciting projects including millinery, corsetry, masks and a variety of costumes from recent Toi Whakaari productions.

Where:
Te Whaea Theatre, Te Whaea: National Dance & Drama Centre, 11 Hutchison Road, Newtown, Wellington
When:
Thu 22 September
6.30pm & 8pm
Price:
$15 full, $10 concessions (includes drink and light refreshment)

Click here for 
Bookings
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  WOW - World of Wearable Art. Currently on in Wellington.

To see the costumes have a look on the Dompost website
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Minerva Gallery
237 Cuba Street
Quilted coats by Katherine Morrison
Jewellery by Elsie Fourie
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Monster Burlesque
Starts on September the 8th.
It's getting really close and I am part of a group working on getting the costumes ready for the performers to rehearse in. This weekend I am making wolf suspenders and girdles!

Snowing in wellington

Last night it started snowing in Wellington about 5pm while I was at the Drama School in Newtown. I packed up quickly, dropped a couple of people home and drove home to tawa and it was a pretty freaky experience. We are not accustomed to snow in Wellington and people were taking it very carefully but it was pretty slushy and icy. I didn't realise that the mudguards on the car had built up a lot of slush behind them and nearly flooded the floor of the garage with melting ice and snow. I didn't get any photos last night because I was driving and when I got home it was dark but here re some photos from this morning.

Above are pictures of Porirua Harbour and below is a picture of my broccoli garden.

Monster Burlesque

For the last few weeks I have been spending one day a week working on costumes for a show called Monster Burlesque which is on in Wellington at the same time as the Rugby World Cup. This is Vaune who designed the costumes and also performs in the show. She gives me bags of fur and spandex and scraps of paper with instructions and says "go make a girdle for a wolf". It is great fun even if it means I end up staying up late to get things done. One day a week a group of us have been getting together at the Wellington Arts Centre to form a sewing circle to work on the costumes. There are people dotted across wellington working on bears and wolves and monsters.

Here is one of the rooster heads which I was making last week

As well as the costumes for Monster Burlesque I am also continuing with the costume for the Duches of Dunfermline and yesterday I completed the sleeves which were the part of the dress I was most worried about. They are very tight and have a slit at the front and a puff at the top with ribbons and the braid carries on up the arm and onto the puffed top area. It took a lot to work out which bit went underneath or over the top of another bit. I am really pleased with the way they turned out and will post a picture of the finished item when I find my camera.

Here is a picture again of Margaret Hay, Duchess of Dunfermline. I am now working on the epaulettes and cuffs.

If anyone would like to come to Costume Showcase which is where the Costume students show what they have made this year - here is a link to the drama school booking page.

Bookings.

This annual event showcases the graduating costumiers' major works and other exciting projects including millinery, corsetry, masks and a variety of costumes from recent Toi Whakaari productions.

Where:	Te Whaea Theatre, Te Whaea: National Dance & Drama Centre, 11 Hutchison Road, Newtown, Wellington
When:	Thu 22 September 6.30pm & 8pm
	$15 full, $10 concessions (includes drink and light refreshment) We are also doing classes in historic undergarments and in special effects. For the underwear class we had to make an 1870's petticoat which has approximately 12 metres of ruffles. Because it is such a lot of fabric we could only use calico,  so I screenprinted mine to make it more interesting. Here is a picture of the petticoat frill drying in my garage - note the use of garage 'props' . When the frill was laid out across the garage. it looked a bit like snake skin. The pattern is actually the lace design on the Ruff I made for the Jacobean costume.

Catch up and jacobean sleeves

Long time no blog...

Since I last checked in, I have spent 2 weeks doing work experience in Wardrobe at the South Australian State Theatre in Adelaide which was great, even if I did do an awful lot of unpicking. They are working on the costumes for Checkhov's 3 sisters. It was great to see the staff working on the first stages of the process from getting the designs from the costume designer, ordering materials, pulling costumes from the store, and watching the cutters start to draft patterns etc. I wish I had been able to stay for the whole time to see how it all comes together.

Now I am back at the course and working on my outfit for costume showcase. I have completed most of the jewellery and most of the bodice and am working on the sleeves. So far I have made 3 toile versions of the top part of the sleeve. Tomorrow I think I should make the definitive version :-) Basically the top of the sleeve is like a puffed sleeve except that it has  'panes' (like strips of ribbon) and tucks in between with fabric showing through. The sleeve is very tight under the armhole and shaped differently to modern sleeves. There is also a hanging sleeve and tabs (not sure what they are called) at the top of the shoulder seam. All that, plus I have to get the patterns in line with each other - wonder whether I can just screenprint the design in the right place on the fabric. I will explore that tomorrow.

Yesterday I spent the day doing work experience making costumes for a burlesque show which was great fun and today I  had a 2 hour lacemaking lesson - quite a contrast...

Photos of progress

Here are a few details of the things I am working on at the moment. Unfortunately the mannekin is a bit bigger than the actual model I have made the garments for so the corset doesn't lace up correctly.
The top photo shows chemise, corset, bumroll and farthingale, the middle one just shows the detail of the skirt showing the cartridge pleating and the bottom photo shows the back of the corset. I'm saving the rest for the actual show.

I was very pleased with the way the screen-printing came out on the skirt so here is a detail of the front.

I am about to start on the jewellery and have been trying to get better detailed pictures of it. The painting is part of the collection of the Dunedin Art Gallery and the staff there have been extremely helpful and have sent me extra photos and descriptions of some of the dark areas such as the head dress.  Ultimately this is a theatre costume not a replica thank goodness. The jewellery is completely over the top, hundreds of precious stones. I had  trouble seeing what the brooch was and was excited to find a picture of a similar item in a book called 7000 years of Jewellery edited by Hugh Tait. A locket called the Lyte jewel is very similar although it has different initials. Heaven only knows how to go about making this!

The jewels of the duchess.

I managed to blow the picture up a bit and discovered the big brooch on the right is a giant locket with jewels all around the outside. I reckon I need about 200 fake gem stones For the locket, head dress and pendant and chains. More pics of everything tomorrow when I have a photo session planned.

Catching up

It has been a long time since I last wrote anything on this occasional blog. I'm at Drama school doing the costume construction course.  At the moment I am spending pretty much all my spare time working on making the costume for my 'Major Work' for the Costume Showcase on 22nd of September.
Costume showcase shows all the costumes that the students have completed this year. For the graduating students it is a chance to really show off.

I am trying to reproduce the costume worn by this lady below.

This is a portrait of Margaret Hay, the Duchess of Dunfermline in the 1600's.  It was painted by Marcus Gheerarts the younger, in 1611 and the portrait is held in the Dunedin Art Gallery. A very potted history - Margaret and her husband were left in charge of Dunfermline castle when James 6th of Scotland became King of England and Scotland after Elizabeth the 1st died. Evidently they were extremely rich. Margaret is wearing a silk satin dress embroidered with gold thread, a bobbin lace ruff, cuffs and partlett, she is dripping with jewels including a big pendant, a huge brooch and a jewelled coronet in her hair.

My challenge is to try and make her whole outfit with a budget of a bit over NZ$200. I spent weeks going into every fabric shop in Wellington trying to find suitable red fabric within my budget which also had to include money for lining fabric and all the other layers she is wearing. In the end I had to use cotton drill and overdye it to get the right colour. Then I screenprinted in on the table tennis table in my garage. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Luckily we are also allowed to use stuff that is in our own personal stash (like lace and stuffing and beads).

The photo above shows the cotton chemise I made for underneath, (this is an item which can be washed easily and keeps sweat off the main outfit)
The corset (next time I might choose to use a smaller print fabric)
A drum farthingale
A bumroll (hidden)
The petticoat in the photo is a borrowed one but mine is similar.

I have also made
The ruff- an 8 metre length of printed mesh in his case instead of real bobbin lace
A petticoat (made of 10 metres of calico in two layers. In my opinion making this was about the equivalent of machine quilting a king size bed quilt.
The skirt - 4.5 metres of fabric which I have hand dyed and screenprinted with gold ink

I'm in the middle of completing the buttons which I am making by hand by embroidering around beads. I got the instructions from a website but can't find the address right now.

I don't want to show all the pieces until after the show but will try to put some detail shots up of the printing and beading.

Next I have to start on the bodice and sleeves but they may have to wait till next term. During the next holidays which start this Friday 17th June, I am off to Adelaide to do work experience in the costume room at the State Theatre. I'm hoping to work on some of the jewellery while I am over there staying with my cousin.

If you are having a clearout and want to get rid of lace, ribbons, beads, feathers (particularly ostrich feathers) and costume jewellery please consider sending them my way :-), I'll refund postage. I am also looking for hat-making blocks and will swap for hand dyed fabric.


Housework has been a bit neglected recently and today is the first non-rainy day for quite a while. I think I had better go and wash 4 loads of washing. Tune in for more costume making catch-up over the next few weeks.
Clare