New costume renderings to share!

I made this set for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” which happens to be one of my favorite plays of all time.  I know Irene Sharaff won an Oscar for Best Costume Design for the movie version with Liz, so these are big shoes to fill, kids!

The scans are a little blurry but I think you get the idea of what I came up with:



         

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I’m working on some costume design for PCC’s upcoming production of Everyman, a 15th century allegorical morality play about Everyman’s reckoning with Death and, ultimately, God.

Everyman, in this case, is going to be one of the only actors who isn’t a giant, fantastic, steampunk-inspired puppet.  Everyman will also be played by many different actors throughout the play so the challenge was to make a costume that harmonizes with the pre-existing steampunk theme, is representative of Everyman AND is easily donned by actors of many shapes, sizes and genders.  This is what I came up with.

To me, Everyman is “trapped” in his myopic selfish individuality and unable to see through the human illusion of separateness and into the truth of his togetherness with God.  Until he can act on the Knowledge of this togetherness through Good Deeds, he is damned.  So, the chains and the cage-like hat represent that mentally “trapped” state, a prison of his own making, and the eye makeup represents his “blindness”/ignorance to his togetherness with God.

I took inspiration from pictures of archaic prison technology from Discipline and Punish.  The lock over his heart is based on a real lock from a Victorian insane asylum.

Everything will be metallic colored (tarnished silver?) but not necessarily actual metal.  I plan on making the hat comfortable to wear with padding protecting actor’s heads from anything pokey or rubby.  I’m thinking about fitting elastic on the inside to make the hat secure yet one-size-fits-all.  I could also add a chin strap for extra security, it depends on how heavy and large it ends up being.

I hope the rest of the creative team likes it!  I’m excited to share this idea with them.

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Love this dress.  Would you believe it’s made of paper?  Edward Maeder makes historically accurate, pitch-perfect, full-sized dresses using only everyday found paper goods.  This is taking a love of paper dolls to the next level.

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  All new designs and projects are up now on my porfolio! 



Now I just have to dig into my old files to try and recover some of the Patchwork Underground designs from years ago.  I really want the flames skirt on my portfolio along with a few other dearly missed and loved pieces I made during that time period.

<3 Erin

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As you can tell, I’ve been re-watching Gone With The Wind again.  Don’t ask where the medieval influences came in…I’m really not sure.  I sat down and started making this with no plan, just an awareness that this striped seersucker was the only appropriately scaled fabric in my stash.  I started with the chest piece and worked my way out from there, gradually deciding that the white and red stripes needed more contrast and texture.  That’s where the maroon fuzzy fabric came in.  It’s actually a light upholstery fabric which really doesn’t make it super well-suited to miniature applications but it’s what I had at the time so I went with it.  I like the fringed epaulets I was able to work out of it.  I also really like the matching stripes detail that you see echoed throughout the dress.  I feel like if I had a dress like this I would feel pretty large and in charge in it.  I think this girl is definitely royalty of some kind.  I almost gave her wings but then decided against it…I think she is more grounded than that.

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