Finalised Footman

Capturing perfect faces is clearly not a strong point of mine. Anyway, here is the finished footman outfit. I got the wig off ebay, the necktie, tights and shoes from the costume department in uni. The necktie isn’t quite right, its a bit small, but it should be okay for the performance, I plan to make a bigger one for the degree show.

Lee became strangely attached to the tights, he seemed happy to walk around in them for far longer than necessary.

Oh La La Tea Party

It’s been speedy speedy working on this costume, a pretty short deadline. Not quite finished here, still work to do on the skirt.

I didn’t do much on the finishing off of this, mainly making very very long tubes for very long ruffles.

But I had to post the finished result all the same.

Jumping into Jane Austen

My new university project involves working with one of my best friends on a small tourist attraction for Wollaton Hall in Nottingham. We both have different roles in the project, and my job is to make the costumes. We need two outfits, both from around 1810, a lady of the house, and a footman.

I want to make the corset and underskirt in the right way, and something along these lines for the dress. I will be focusing on historical accuracy, but my lecturer is keen for me to have theatrical reasons behind all my design choices. What are my reasons for that colour? Why is it relevant to the character? That kind of thing. Of course I will try to consider all these things, but we are basing the character on an actual person (Lady Jane Middleton) rather than from a story or play, so I don’t know how to go about it.

I’m starting the corset tomorrow, very different in shape to the ones I’m used to making. When it comes to the dress I need to find the appropriate fabric, something that drapes appropriately and doesn’t cost the earth – we have a fairly small budget to stick too.

2 weeks, late nights, and a lot of ruffles

It was a different project to what I’m used too, instead of lots of time on one outfit with a decent amount to spend or a decent amount donated for a very special occasion. This time I had to be very quick, and spend as little as possible.

I like to make my corsets to the best standard I can, hand sewing the bias-binding etc, because of the time constraints I had to machine stitch the bias-binding, and it actually made me cringe to do it. It was very satisfying to see everything come together so quickly though.

This is why I’m not the photographer

I wish I knew her name, here are the pictures taken by the professional that uni organised for the end of the project. I get my feedback about how I did soon, hope it goes well.

In the mean time, I’ve been feverishly corset making. 2 down, 3 to go, I have 5 full sets of Moulin rouge costumes to make for my flatmates birthday night out next Wednesday.

Hair and make-up time

This make-up is absolutely stunning. Make-up is not a skill of mine, but I can aspire.

I poor suffering model Charlie is not very well. I really rushed my make-up testing. Its not perfect but the general idea is there, I think I should extend the black down the nose a little, and out towards the sides.

I always wanted to do a plait for the hair, it is often seen done this way in the pictures of the Valkyrie, but I used the fishtail technique instead of the regular one to mix it up a bit. I think for the photo shoot it would be lovely with some gold metallic thread threaded through it.

...with flowers in my hair

Lots of silk flowers, hot glue and felt. A lovely few hours playing with glitter glue like primary school.