Costumes, Costumes, Costumes

One of the things Professor Burton and I talked about in my self-assessment was finding more ways to explore Shakespeare creatively. Fun fact about me, I would love to move to LA right now and be a costume designer for a television show. Costume design, as you know, is really dictated by the needs of a production - you can't just walk into Neiman Marcus and buy six Nazi uniforms off the rack. So, for period costumes, or alternate world costumes, you have two choices: go to a costume house (and the quality can vary greatly), or design and make the costumes yourself. For modern productions, the costume designer will often go out and purchase a bunch of individual pieces of clothing to turn into outfits. Especially on TV (in movies as well, but not as consistently), characters often have signature pieces that they wear over and over again. Buffy had a necklace and Spike had his duster. Rick Castle has purple shirts. Detective Stabler has sleeveless undershirts. These are constant motifs that the costume designer chooses to include to say something about the character.

What am I getting at with this? Two things. One, I would like to be a costume designer, so if anyone knows anyone, let me know. Secondly, I've taken the initiative to design some costumes for some dream productions. I've put together costumes for The Winter's Tale, and for The Taming of the Shrew. I only did two key characters from each (I'm not made of time and no one is paying me for this - YET), but if you guys will bear with me, I'll walk you through the concepts for each show. This is kind of long (AGAIN), so I'm sorry, but I think it's at least one of my more interesting posts. Oh, and I should mention, these are my dream productions where I have no budgetary constraints whatsoever.




My vision for The Winters Tale is as follows: Gone With The Wind. Two rival plantations, rather than two warring kingdoms. I don't know how many of you have read Gone With The Wind or seen the million-hour long movie version, but my vision for Hermione and Leontes was inspired by Scarlett O'Hara's parents. Mrs. O'Hara is described as very tall and slender and impossibly graceful and a really traditionally dignified Southern lady, whereas Mr. O'Hara is a short, bald Irish guy who just got lucky. I thought that kind of dynamic would be perfect for Leontes and Hermione. That, of course, casts Perdita in the Scarlett role, which I don't think is completely appropriate. Scarlett O'Hara, though possibly some kind of sociopath, had buckets more personality than Perdita ever showed. So it's not a perfect application, but we're working with what we've got.

I actually (quickly and VERY poorly) sketched out some costume ideas for Hermione and Perdita. I did Hermione as a grand Southern lady in a tiny corset and enormous hoop skirt with layers of petticoats. If I were sewing an actual dress from my design (which I in no way have the technical prowess to do), I would use purple taffeta for the overdress, and really soft, ruffled cotton for the petticoats. Behold:

Next, I drew Perdita as a country girl. I was still thinking Southern, but more along the lines of a daughter of a less wealthy farmer. Her family are still land-owners, but they aren't involved in the Plantation lifestyle. They don't wear fancy clothes (except for very special occasions), so to give some variety, I wanted to draw her in her everyday wear. I think in the festival, she would be wearing a big fancy dress with a corset and a hoop skirt, but I already drew that, and I don't want to bore you.

Now I'm going to move on to The Taming of the Shrew. The reason I walked you all through how costume designers for TV shows do things is because that's largely what I've done here. This version is set in the Hamptons in ambiguously modern times. Baptista is an Armani-suit wearing corporate executive who has made millions and who likes to bring his family out to their Hamptons house whenever he can. Bianca is his nice, preppy daughter who wears a lot of Kate Spade, and then there's Katherina. A vegan, tattooed, American Spirits-smoking motorcycle chick. Her manicure is black, like her heart. And then some prepster named Petruchio comes to town looking for a way to get in on Baptista's money without having to work. The solution? Get married to one of his girls without a pre-nup. I've done outfits for Katherina and Petruchio.

 

The reason I bring up the budget being unlimited is that this is like a fifteen hundred dollar outfit. The jacket and shoes are vegan leather, because it's very important that if Kate is a vegan, she sticks to her principles with her clothing as well as her food.

Now, on to Petruchio. I really wanted him to be aggressively, annoyingly preppy. I really wanted him to be that guy who's always telling you about his internship at Ernst and Young and how he met Donald Trump and how his mother plays canasta with Martha Stewart. As such, absolutely every piece of his wardrobe is Ralph Lauren.