Work of 2012!

January - Carmen costumes for the 2012 tour by impact opera directed by Peter Knapp.
I drafted and made the corset for Carmen and one of the bandit coats

Also in january, costume sourcing started for a small amount of filming for ITV south of the Charles Dickens evening at Groundlings Theatre, Portsmouth.

February! This was the BBC month! This was really exciting for me as i was pulled in quite last minute to cover the wardrobe mistress role. I was required to do the fittings, alterations, repairs and source anything else that wasnt in the stock we were required to use. The production had no budget for costume so had to make do with what we had, it didnt turn out so bad! :) I had to make sure all costumes were returned after each bit of filming too ready for the next day, which is a lot of costumes and accessories for around 80 extras! It can be watched here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1xkqaeLkGs

 Crowd scene outside the WhiteStar Offices

 Park Scene with Madeleine Smith

 Office Scene

The crew and cast on this project were fantastic to work with.

March- I worked on my universitys production of Evita. This project was an absolute nightmare! There was next to no budget so of course, costume got barely any as usual. I was asked to make Eva Perons ball gown from one of my designs, which i thought would be really exciting to make until the director decided we will use a dress that is already made and we would stick some sequins on it. Then it was decided this wasnt right either and a white cape was required. In my opinion, this was a bad choice as the fabric we were given was bright white, which just makes things disappear under stage lighting, an ivory would have work better and showed up white on stage. I wouldnt have chose a cape either, looked like some sort of  sparkly super hero! A shrug or shawl would have sufficed. I also made some 1940s style underwear for a very small girl, which made it hard to get the correct shaping of the era but turned out quite well. Oooo i almost forgot, i made my first hat for this show too! A small grey wool percher with bow :) I love this hat!

Toile for the Mistress underwear

Mistress and Peron 

 Eva Peron's hat used during 'Rainbow High'

 The ballgown and opera cape

April - Started the design work for my final project at uni! I dont have scans of the final designs but youll see the work a the end of this post :) I chose to mix fantasy and winged insects (no idea where that came from!)  and because i like to be busy...i ended up volunteering to be costume supervisor for a production of 12 Angry Men. (10 angry men and 2 slightly angry women) This work carried on through until May.... Oh and to mark the 100 years since the titanic, there were two programmes i worked on clashing on tv! (which i got excited about as it was my first bit of tv:D ) I worked on a film the previous summer called Saving the Titanic, I recommend this, it is definitely worth a watch if you like history or the titanic, its not what you expect at all! and also the BBC docu-drama i worked on in feb:)

Top- Captain of the ship, i altered this jacket and added suitable buttons and bands. Bottom- One of the many waistcoats i helped make for the crew.

These photos are promotional pictures therefore these photos do not belong to me. All credit to the production team.

May! Like i said....still working on the show and my final pieces. The show went really well, all the performances sold out and no costumes broke! Woohoo! It was set in the 60s and had to be suits etc so fairly simple to put together but each character had small quirks about them which carried through into the costumes to distinguish each.

Unfortunately no production shots but i managed to get this one of all the cast before one of the shows!

June... My final exhibition.. The final projects didnt end up exactly how i wanted due to time but i dont think they turned out too bad.

 Moth Assassin

Moth Assassin

Dragonfly Sorceress

July- I spent the summer making various dresses for myself to practise my pattern drafting. Take any opportunity to do this.

August - Same again! and a bit of work on some victorian dresses and accessories for an education film called On Hungry Hill, some photos of the costumes can be seen here http://www.facebook.com/OnHungryHill

September - To be honest i cant remember much of the past few months theyve been a bit all over the place. I was mainly researching into corsets and why they existed and what effects they had on the body. I made an 18th century corset and plan to make a few other corsets in the new year :) I went to the battle of hastings re enactment in battle, which was fantastic! Great talking to costume makers there and looking at all the fantastic suppliesi n the market! i was stupid and didnt bring any money with me though!  Ill be there again next year though and raiding that market for fabulous linens, wools and haberdashery.

October- November - I was continuing research in these months aswell as doing some commissioned portraits and alterations. I also worked with the Victorian Festival of Christmas, fitting, alterations, repairs for all the performers across the weekend aswell as helping on the costume exhibition.

December- Not alot happened this month with christmas happening. I made a victorian swimming suit similar to the one Helena bonham carter wears in Sweeney Todd, i dont have any good photos of this at the moment but hopefully get some in the new year!