Completed Specialist Practice Costume

Specialist practice was my last construction unit at university before my Extended Major Project.

The project was to realise a given design in 3D. I did not choose fabrics or design on this project as the final costume was to be used in the university's costume store.

The design was based on the character Gwendoline from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

For this design I was given a corset and bustle to use.

Completed Falstaff costume

I am realtively pleased with the turnout of this costume. Unfortunately I had little support from university in regards to constructing these garments and so with the aid of a very old tailoring book I and using the knowledge I gained when making a tailored wasitcoat in a previous project, I used educated guesswork to draft and construct this three piece suit.

I am looking forward to seeing it on stage in July!

Falstaff Design

Publish Post

My Designs for Falstaff

The story so far...

I am in the process of building my costume hire company.

I have been Wardrobe Mistress with Bournemouth Shakespeare Players for 6 years now and we have always had the issue that despite having a large stock of costume, it is always a mammoth task to find exactly what we want. Also as some of the items are very old they are desperately in need of repair or re-vamping but before I joined the company, there was no-one with the time nor skills to tend to these wonderful costumes. Since becoming Wardrobe Mistress I have made little impact on sorting this huge store of costumes, mainly due to time, although I have added to it with my own creations.

However, now that I am at university studying costume design and construction, I have the time (not as much as I would like though!!) to improve our range and as we currently only have one major production per year it seems a waste to have all these costumes just boxed away and getting little use so I suggested building a costume hire company.

So here we are. My home has quite a well insulated roof so flooring has been laid and costume rails erected! Now inbetween my university projects, costuming BSP productions, costuming for other local drama groups and for private clients, I am sorting and cataloguing all our costume stock and using the skills I have learnt, am increasing the size and variety of our range.

This weekend I have bought quite alot of costumes back from our garages and carefully cleaned them. My priority given to some Regency style dresses which I plan on using for a filming project for a private client, next week. These dresses have some really positive attributes, being well made and of good style but some of the decoration lace and ribbon details were just tacked on and in poor condition, letting down the overall look of these lovely garments. So out with my snips! All the trims have been removed and now they are ready for some Kerry magic! Stay tuned for photos!

Falstaff - The Merry Wives of Windsor - SDP uni project

I have combined my last unit of my second year at university with my annual project of costuming Bournemouth Shakespeare Players' summer production.
The unit is titled Self Directed Project and, just as the title suggests, it is a project where we are to organise ourselves and manage the entire project ourselves, to completion. I was hoping that we would be given some structured lessons on techniques we have not come accross so far in our course but we have been told the tutor support is only there to oversee our work and that we must find our own solutions and find books and information on construction proceedures that we have not previously covered.

Although I am costuming the entire production (which you will be able to read about on my other blogg pages throughout the summer), for the purpose of SDP I am consentrating on one particular character.

Production:      The Merry Wives Of Windsor
Character:       Sir John Falstaff

Falstaff is seen as one of the most important characters in this play as most of the farce throughout the story revolves around him and his greedy plan to gain the fortunes of at least one of the two Wives, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford (my character). He is however, unsuccessful in his plans and ends up being the laughing stock after the two wives play a series of tricks upon him in revenge.

The character is a knight who is seen in several of Shakespeare's plays and is always seen as a very corpulant figure. In this play he is down on his luck with little money and no estate, (hence his plan to woo one of the rich ladies of Windsor) and as a result is a little dishevelled.

We are not setting this play in the traditional period but rather brought it forward into the late 1940's - early 1950's. As a result, I will be sourcing alot of the costume items, with the exception of Falstaff, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford - This is a huge advantage for me as I am playing the role of Mistress Ford so have lines to learn and have many other projects I am currently involved in!