Turn of the Screw Costume

For Carnegie Mellon's recent production of Turn of the Screw I draped and created this jacket and skirt for the Governess character designed by graduate costume designer Paula Ries.

Construction Details: The jacket and skirt were created from a silver grey silk dupioni and faced with a light blue silk dupioni. The front of the jacket is interlined in canvas to provide structure, while the back pieces are flat lined in cotton. The peplums of the jacket are interlined in crinoline with horsehair along the hem. The edge of the horsehair is also wired with a flexible wire to give the peplum shape. The lapel and collar are pad stitched to give shape. The skirt is flat lined in silk organza to give the silk dupioni body, and the hem has a blue silk dupioni facing with horsehair inside to give shape. 

Turn of the Screw Mock Up

Above: The jacket that started it all - from Alexander McQueen's first fashion collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks his Victims, 1992.

The Mock Up, ready for the fitting tomorrow evening. The sleeves will be hung in the fitting.

The peplum is stiffened with crinoline, a row of horsehair, and a pliable wire.

Turn of the Screw Drape

The possibilities are endless...well, not quite, but we certainly do have a lot of options to consider for our jacket peplum! Here are some of the options that I came up with today for the 'Turn of the Screw' jacket. There are four different options here, varying in fabric amount and structure (tulle, horsehair, nothing). And this is the first go at the skirt. We'll see if this is what the designer is looking for. Now to drape the front of the jacket!

Draping McQueen Jacket

My current draping assignment is for a production of 'Turn of the Screw' designed by Paula Ries at CMU. Paula was inspired by this stunning jacket by Alexander McQueen. I will be draping a similar jacket today. The jacket will be made of grey silk dupioni and lined in light blue silk dupioni.

The jacket has this lovely peplum at the back - isn't it great?

The coordinating skirt is a mermaid skirt similar to this one. Of course, the character is very physical in her clothing, even rolling around on the floor, so I'm not sure how much of this might change once we get into fittings.

DanceLight 2012

Here is a sneak peak of the men's ballet tunic that I just finished for a CMU dance show called 'DanceLight'. The show features about 20 dances choreographed, danced, lit and costumed by CMU students. This year Elisabeth and I were each assigned to build a men's ballet tunic for this ballet duet. I built the tunic for the gentleman on the left in the above picture.

I had never built a men's ballet tunic before, so this was quite an adventure. The tunic consists of a spandex fitted shirt with the tunic sleeves attached, and a separate tunic that can either zip, snap, or hook closed at front. Because the sleeves are attached to a separate stretch shirt, the dancer is able to have more freedom of movement.

This picture was taken at the dress rehearsal, so it is still in an unfinished stage without trim. It's a good think that there isn't a picture of the back of the tunic. No sooner had I fastened the tunic on the wearer than it began to literally fall apart at the seams. Apparently the thread that I used was dry rotting. So, the tunic was taken apart and restitched with better thread. In the end, I was happy with the way the tunic turned out. There are some things that I would change if I were to do it all again, but it was a great learning experience.

Now I'm finishing up the Pet en l'air for a customer and then on to draping a Victorian inspired dress for 'Turn of the Screw'.

Shirtdress Dress for "Mad Forest"

Here are pictures of my most recent creation. A dress for the production "Mad Forest" to be worn by Irina. The actress will be wearing padding underneath to give her body the proper figure for the role that she is playing. I draped the pattern for this dress and sewed the entire garment. The production went into first dress last night and the show opens on December 1st at Carnegie Mellon University.

Draping Project - Fashion Dress

Front

I know this doesn't look like a whole lot, but boy did it take a long time to drape! One of our most recent assignments in Draping class was to drape a dress based on a modern fashion image of a draped dress. The original was made of primitive pleated silk. We replicated it with primitive pleated taffeta. First we draped and constructed a darted shift for underneath the dress. Then the fashion fabric was draped on the form over the shift. To finish the dress, the drape would be hand tacked in place to the shift. The original had the look of fabric that had been wrapped around the body somewhat carelessly immediately before the model walked the catwalk. In actuality, the garment would have been draped and tacked to an understructure to carefully hold the drape in place.

When given this project, our initial reaction was, 'oh, this will be easy.' But it was much more difficult than that. Especially for me. It was very difficult to let go of my control of the fabric and let it drape in the way it wanted to while still remaining as true as possible to the original image. But by the end, it was much more enjoyable.

Side Front

Back - with extra fabric twirled and tucked at top - would be removed in actual garment.

Side Front

Dance Light Pictures!

Photo by Bart Cortright

Finally, here are a few pictures to show you from the Dance Light performance that I designed costumes for. Eventually I'll post some more pictures, but here are a few to wet your appetite.

The dance was performed to "Anyone Can Cook" by Michael Giacchino from the movie 'Ratatouille'. You can listen to it HERE.

Photos by Bart Cortright are posted HERE - see photos 9441 to 9505 to see pictures from the dance piece that I designed and made costumes for. You can scroll through some of the other performances, too. The one right after mine, entitled 'Mom Jeans' was hilarious!