Into a Dragon

After realizing that my Kingdom Hearts III Sora project was going to be somewhat too ambitious, I have decided on something a little more simple, but still very fun and in the cosplay setting. I want to do a hoodie and pants inspired by Toothless from the movie "How to train your Dragon".

There's a design online that I would like to base my creation around. I might tinker a bit with it to make bigger wings to have a cooler look, but I am still undecided because I would like it to be something everyday wearable as well.
Toothless is a very lovable character, so I dont necessarily want to look fierce in it.

This coming Saturday we will be going to fabric mart, so I will be able to get the materials there. It shouldn't be difficult, I now only need black color fabrics.

I now have the materials needed for my final project. Overall the cost was about $70 dollars. Which is pretty cheap considering that all websites that offer this hoodie price it around $200-300 dollars.

I will be following a Mcalls hoddie pattern which I will slightly alter to make the main construction of the hoodie. Afterwards, it will be up to me to make the ears, spikes, tail and wings patterns. I will be using batting to stuff the wings and tail.

Right now, I think time wise I should be fine. I also made sure to get extra fabric and batting because I will probably end up botching a couple of pieces.

The only thing I am missing right now would be the paint to make the small scale details that the hoodie shows in some parts.

I am really excited to start this project this coming week.

The Finishing Touches

I must say that I ended up enjoying this class much more than I initially thought. I think that one of the main things that made this so enjoyable, is the people that are part of the team. We don't really hang out much outside of class, but inside the costume lab we are a pretty cohesive friendly group.We worked well as a team and were very eager to take on whatever the production needed to move forward.

Sometimes we didn't see eye to eye on our costume critiques, but on the play I feel like we all knew what our objective was so it was easy to choose things without any dissent of opinions. And I think a big part of why that happened is that Sister Dooley really gave us direction from the beginning.

She let us know what should be the main components of our wardrobe and then she allowed us to have fun with it. This I feel is very important, because now as we are about to be done with the play I look at our actors in their costumes and I can really feel fulfilled in the sense that I really helped and made a difference in the costume design.

Going with that same idea, being able to be in charge of the final look of Fruma Sarah was an amazing opportunity and also very fun. It was especially cool, because now I know how to do skeleton looking makeup.

I do wish that we had been able to have some more practice in make up. We had a couple of lessons, but just the theory is not really enough to go help an actor with their makeup. Myba next time we can have some make up classes earlier in the semester and have some test models.

Fashionista Revenge

Jill M. Ohanneson is known for her work on Revenge (2011), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) and 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002). Her work in ABC's hit series, Revenge, is what really caught my attention. Set in The Hamptons as a tragic story of drama and revenge, the series costumes and fashion is everything you would dream it to be.

I was able to find several interviews and articles in which Jill talks about the shopping, designing and altering for the show's wardrobe. From the looks of the clothes, one would think that they just buy everything from high end designers for every episode, but that is completely untrue.





This is an excerpt of inside magazine:

“Almost everything that goes on our principal actors gets altered, from head to toe,” she said. “Men’s suits are altered up one sleeve and down the other and up the back and sides. All the dresses are brought in to within an inch, actually a fraction, of their body.” Each actor has their own mannequin to match their figure!

Jill says that this altering/fitting process is very important to the show. Most of the characters are very powerful and wealthy personalities and this must be transmitted not only through their acting, but also through the clothes they are wearing.

“We tailor everything to make it work with the actors’ bodies. All the principals have their clothing tailored. That’s how you make someone look powerful. If your clothes fit you perfectly, you feel more authoritative and you carry yourself differently. “


The mannequins on the right, belong to three of the main characters of the show (Victoria Greyson, Emily Thorne, and Nolan Ross).

For these same reasons, no major clothing items are ever worn more than once. Every episode and its clothes must stand alone and make a grand impression each week to keep alive that Hampton's atmosphere.

Each character has their own separate closet. Emily has the biggest overall wardrobe, but Nolan's closet is the one with the most pairs of shoes.
The wardrobe also has its own accessories closet and their tailoring department.

On a more specific note, I will talk about how Emily Thorne's clothes help give depth to her character. In the show Emily lives a double life, to everyone she is a graceful, wealthy, new arrival at the Hamptons, while in the shadows she is doing dangerous tasks to infiltrate and destroy those who took away her father.

Thats why whenever she is in public she will be wearing beautiful dresses and sometimes tailored suits, but in reality she is the most comfortable when she is in jeans and a t-shirt.

A Sea of Fabric

Penny Rose is a costume designer who has worked in the film industry since the 1970s. Rose was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design three times for the films Evita (1996), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006).

Many of the costumes featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean series are worthy of praise, but my all time favorite is definitely Captain Jack Sparrows look. It looks so washed out and raggedy, but the whole costume is composed of several elements that have given Sparrow his identity. Some of the pieces are:

* woven blue-gray eight-button jacket with flared, pleated tails and
        oversize slit cuffs
* distressed 12-button aubergine linen vest
* oversize, open-necked cream linen shirt with billowing sleeves
* faded brown cotton button-fly pants with buttoned, buckled cuffs
* distressed brown leather belt with oversize antique-finished buckle
* distressed brown suede knee-high boots with 10-inch cuffs
* cream-colored sash with red stripes
* fingerless medium brown glove with wrist strips
* frayed black rag with striped accents

The costume of this costume is very well known and spread online thanks to the fact that one of the costume replicas worn by a stuntman was auctioned.



Some other very noteworthy costumes are the golden gown that Elizabeth wears at the beginning of the movie (Curse of the Black Pearl) and Tia Dalma's dress (Dead Man's Chest). The dress that was washed away in the sea for the first movie was actually also auctioned online, and thanks to this many people have been able to replicate it incredibly accurately. The fabric reportedly is Chelsea Sable and the lace on the sleeves is English Net. Both of these fabrics are available online.

Tia Dalma's outfit is very much the opposite of this gown, it is a simply raggedy dress with accesories to finish the look. However the treatment that the fabric seems to have received is marvelous.



There also seems to be several layers of fabric that were used to make the textile that the dress seems mostly made out. I particularly like that even though this dress looks so decayed and aged it still keeps that look that goes in hand with the time the movie is set on. It is still very conservative and with lots of details in the finishing.

The costumes in this movie all look so very cool and make you wanna be each and every one of the characters, and I think that is an important thing that good costumes can achieve. You wanna be certain characters to look at yourself in their clothes and that makes you root for them even more.

Leonardo's Butterfly

Jenny Beavan (born 1950 in London, England) is an English costume designer. She has won an Academy Award and has been nominated eight times, most recently for The King's Speech. Beavan also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Costume Design for the play Private Lives.
She is a graduate of the London-based Central School of Art and Design.

This time I would like to particularly discuss Beavan's work in the film "Ever After, A Cinderella Story". This movie is to this day my favorite adaptation of the Cinderella Fairy Tail.



I will start by talking about my favorite costume in the movie. This dress, most commonly named "Breathe" is simply one of the most beautiful creations. The details in the bodice and the sleeves are extremely intricate , yet the shape of the dress to me remains very simple and elegant.

I found a website that talks in particular detail about the construction and embroidery that was used for the dress. This images show some of the impressive hand sewing techniques that were used to create this impressive work of art.

The movie itself tries to be a portrayal of the "true" Cinderella story, that being not having a fairy god mother that uses magic, but this dress looks indeed very magical and helps bring that element of magic to the film without departing from its intentions.

The dress and the makeup bring about a very feminine look, but to me the wings are what showcases some of that inner strength that Danielle shows throughout the film. The wings arent angel or really butterfly looking, they have all these pointy ends that to me look sorta devilish. So even there in that flamboyant detail, the dress is balanced and really shows the true identity of the character.










In direct contrast to this dress we have Danielle's everyday, or work clothes. I love the fabric that they used for this, it looks so rough and cheap. A perfect fit for someone who is working as a servant.







The last costume I will talk about is her courtier costume. These are supposed to be clothes from Danielle's mother fit for a day in the Royal Court. Because of this, the outfit should be something that sort of doesnt really look like her, but that she is still able to wear and look beautiful on.

This dress looks very appropriate for the time and it flows beautifully. This image shows some other costumes wore by extras and minor characters. The time setting in the movie is that of Medieval France and I think that the costumes remain loyal to the time setting throughout the entire movie.

A world of Horror

Wendy Partridge is a costume designer who has worked in over 50 films. Her credits include Hellboy, Blade II, and Underworld: Evolution. She designed the costumes for Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Revelation.

On this post I will focus on Partridge's designs for the Silent Hill Movies. The Silent Hill series started in 1999 as a PlayStation video game under the genre of Horror-Survival. Since then several installments of the game have been released, each presenting new characters and the experiences they live through when events beckon them to return to the mysterious town of Silent Hill.

However, the main protagonists clothes is not what makes Wendy Partridge worthy of my attention, it is rather the monsters and nightmarish apparitions that she was able to bring to life in the big screen that make her in my opinion a phenomenal designer.
In the movie, Silent Hill has become a nightmare prison for the fanatics who under their false beliefs tried to stop the apocalypse by torturing a small girl named Alessa. Within this Silent Hill everyone has a haggard decrepit look, letting us know about their suffering and pain.

 They are still wearing very conservative clothes, but all of them have a very old and dusty look about them. Signifying how long they have been trapped within the nightmare and how the prison is eating them away.

To further torture its victims, Alessa has created several monsters within Silent Hill. The most prominent ones withing the movie are the undead nurses and Pyramid Head.

Pyramid Head is Alessa's executioner, and it is my favorite costume of the movie. He is very simple clothing wise. He merely wears sort of an apron that is seemingly made of human skin sewn together. The most important part of this look however is his iconic head piece and the giant butcher knife that he wields. Both of these pieces are supposed to be made of very heavy material to the point of weighing him down. Partridge in a special feature included in the movie DVD talks about how they achieved that look without making the pieces too heavy by a treatment of paint that made both pieces look like very study rusty metal.

The nurses on the other hand, require more fabric work. They all wear their nurses uniform (one piece dress and cap), but an important element is how the nurses have their faces covered in bandages or simply have no face at all. Here again its not really about the display of sewing techniques, but about the fabric treatment that she achieves. She turns simple fabric into something terrifying, by giving it that decayed and almost putrefied look. The make up that lets us see the veins on the nurses bodies and their disfigured faces also enhances this effect.

Penny Dreadful Costume Critique #5

From the haunting pages of old newspaper stories, comes a series that is beautifully haunting. Showtime's new drama series has been using  Gabriella Pescucci as the costume designer and she is no stranger to using vintage clothes to bring up the look that the characters deserve.

Penny Dreadful is set in the Victorian England era, which is the timeline where many famous horror stories and novels are supposed to have existed. From mediums and vampires to Dorian Grey and Dr. Frankenstein , Pescucci has to dress them all. Because of the dark stories that the series is based upon, the costumes have to follow suit in order to really portray the dark tone the time and themes the series touches upon. Because of the time the series is set, Pescucci has been able to use some vintage in the wardrobe. For an interview with Vanity magazine she says,

"where possible I used vintage clothes. In other cases, I used pieces of authentic embroidery, lace, or buttons that I found in the London vintage market, applying them on corsets or dresses made with new fabric. I also used vintage men’s jackets, waistcoats, scarves, and hats when the actors measurements and characters would permit".

In the interview, Pescucci also mentions what are some things that influenced her color choices and design for some of the main characters, she says,

"The elegant physicality and the pale color of Eva’s skin led to me to choose dark colors for her. Josh Hartnett was dressed in bright colors in the Wild West Show [in the pilot], but that was the only situation I choose a bright color for him – that scene was meant to be a little bit vulgar, but funny".

Vanessa Ives, is a woman tormented by her past and the decisions her possessed self made her take. She is mysterious, but maintains the part of a woman in such an era very well. Some of her costumes have ridiculous amount of detail into them like the dress (above). It has so many layers and lace intricacies, which really lets you get a taste of the kind of woman Vanessa is.

Somthing that I particularly love of the costume designing as a whole, is that even though it is sometimes very restricted to dark tones and colors, the clothes still look very different from each other. They look cohesive without making you feel that every piece of it was made out of the same thing.

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland Costume Critique #4

Not known to many in 2013-2014 ABC's hit series "Once Upon a Time" spawned a spin off that was mainly focused in the characters from Alice in Wonderland and Aladdin. This new series titled "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" started and finished with a solid fan base, but did not reach much glory or appraisal. However for this critique I would like to examine one of the strongest elements of this series, that being its costume design.

Costume designer Eduardo Castro has been nominated for an Emmy in the costume design for a series category and has won in the past the Costume Designer Guilds Award in the same category. In the interview ahead Eduardo talks about what a designer needs to be aware of and how he adapted different styles into the show to really get the look the creators of the series wanted.

https://youtu.be/4w6Png7SqAM

Some of my favorite outfits in the show were deigned for the character of the Red Queen. In this case, the character still has her inherent anger and control issues, but she is presented in a way to make it noticeable that she uses her sexuality to extend her control and grasp more power.

 The plunging neck lines in these dresses along with the fitting shape of the outfits make this Red Queen not only look dangerous, but sexy as well. The fabric selection also seems to go wonderfully. In both outfits we can see the drop off the fabric accentuating the actress body, giving her more presence and power over the scene.

However, I do believe that sometimes this character suffers, from over accessorizing. In the last outfit shown here, the crown, high feather neck, the necklace and the black feather brooch are definitely too much. It was obvious from the beginning that the series was not one with a great budget, so the crown and necklaces never look too real, but when you add more and more next to them they start looking more and more like trinkets.

Alice also receives a complete makeover in this spin off. This time around, she spends a much longer period of time in Wonderland and fully transforms into a woman while being there. She also learns how to sword fight and survive from incredible dangers. Both of these situations, translate mainly into one thing for her wardrobe, no dresses.

Alice this time around is always ready to defend herself and her true love and that is quickly discerned by looking at her clothes. Using leather like materials for her jacket, vest and other accessories, give this Alice an adventurous edge.However, small details like the open jacket, the lace on the sleeves and fitting of the clothes still maintain a feminine look.

Neither of the actresses even though they are presented as powerful independent women are shown as tomboys in any way. This is a detail I very much appreciate, because it helps maintain an element of beauty that I particularly believe any fairy tail or magical adventure should have.

Scavenging for Anatevka

In an attempt to reduce our workload when it comes to sewing costumes from scratch for our dancing villagers, I have been visiting the Give and Take center on campus to find some clothes that fit into our costumes criteria.

A couple of visits have been fruitless, but during the Thanksgiving break I was finally able to find some things that I believe will or could be very useful to us. We have been talking a lot about our color palette being based on earthen tones so I have been sticking to that concept.

 I have also been on the lookout for floral designs that look tacky and give that peculiar Anatevka look. So far I have found some blouses and long dresses that I feel go well with some other pieces we are already incorporating in our wardrobe. I think that some of the dresses that have short or no sleeves could be turned into a skirt. I am not expert in the matter, but I would assume doing that would be less work than making a whole skirt from scratch.

So far I am afraid most of the things I have managed to find are for women, but I am sure I can get something for our male characters too once we talk more about what we want for them. Along with the clothes I was able to get a couple of accessories (scarfs) for our cast. I also found a box there that is full of sewing patterns. Some of them would definitely not be helpful for the play. For the time being I grabbed only one that is for making skirts and long sleeve dresses.