I have finally gathered all the fabric needed to create the costume- I bought the olive patterned damask from my local market, the purple satin and seahorse pendant from ebay, the beads and lace from Hobbycraft and the velvet from the Cloth Shop London. I am really happy with how the fabrics have come together, the colours and textures work really well with my design and I am looking forward to start construction.
I was given the task of creating a hat or headpiece for the character of Puck, from a Midsummer-Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. I was given the epilogue of the play to work from and a colour scheme of green and gold.
Epilogue Spoken by Puck "If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends."
[he vanishes]
A Midsummer-Night's Dream- William Shakespeare.
Puck...
In the sixteenth century the best known English fairy was Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck. Supposedly the son of Oberon and a country woman, he was granted special powers by his father, who said that he was only to use them to help honest people. Robin did not always keep to this condition, however, and he was as famous for his mischievous tricks as for washing the dishes and sweeping the floor.
I wanted to reflect nature within Puck's headpiece, to perhaps create a crown of flowers and leaves intertwined, to reflect the faery forest, and the playfulness of the character...
I started by looking online for examples of a similar concept and I loved the romantic, fairytale feeling of these particular crowns...
Knowing the look I wanted to achieve, it became a case of raiding the garden for anything still green. Which was difficult in the snow! In the end I chose a mixture of evergreen's such as ivy, lavender and passion flower leaves.
Tools-
-Scissors
-Pliers
-Gold Jewellery Wire
-Leather Cord
-Foliage
To create the base of the headband, I plaited three strips of brown leather cording securing the ends with gold wire.
Tying the band around a silver bin to keep it's shape, I then preceded to weave the foliage through the leather securing the ends with the gold wire.
I wrapped the band with strips of the gold wire to give it strength.
I then created small beaded springs with the remaining wire to add a bit of fun. To create the springs wrap the wire around a pencil, remove add beads and use the pliers the bend the wire in place.
Finally I secured the ends of the band with the left over leather cord, which was wrapped several times around the edges and tied together in a knot.I was really pleased with the final piece and I believe it worked well with the other elements provided by two other costume girls.
Today I went to the Hobby Craft Create and Stitch exhibit at 'Glow' Bluewater and they had a selection of the costumes from series one of Downton Abbey on display. From the very first episode of Downton, I was hooked by the great story lines, drama and of course the gorgeous costumes...
Downton Abbey Series One Trailer
Downton Abbey Series One costumes designed by Susannah Buxton
-Not all of the dresses on Downton have been made for the show, some have appeared in other dramas. Lady Mary wears a gown previously seen on Catherine Zeta-Jones. “I think it’s wonderful that the dresses are worn again,” says Susannah, “It’s a marvellous example of recycling – and it would have gone on in real life.Some of the vintage dresses worn by the cast can cost up to £2,000, but designing and making all of the outfits would be impossible as they’d blow the wardrobe budget. “I am always, always on the lookout for materials," says Susannah. "Some of the dresses I made from cloth I bought by the yard from a stall at Shepherd Market in London. “On Downton, about a third of the costumes are made from scratch. We couldn’t have done all of them – it would have cost a fortune, way over our budget – and some of the fabrics just don’t exist anymore.” Susannah admits that while the costumes look stunning, most of them are very uncomfortable for the cast to wear. “In the first series they were wearing those really tight, severe, S-shaped corsets and they had real problems. It’s a nightmare for those poor things. They were very, very uncomfortable. You have to learn to wear them, and of course the girls are not used to it. They were so tight cast members couldn’t even eat in them. The men suffer too – those razor-sharp collars are very uncomfortable."
Anyway here are my photos from the exhibit, with stills... Lady Mary Crawley...
Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley
Lady Sybil Crawley...
Jessica Brown-Finday as Lady Sybil Crawley
Lady Edith Crawley...
Laura Carmichael as Lady Edith Crawley
Lady Cora Grantham...
Elizabeth McGovern as Lady Cora Grantham
Dowager Countess of Grantham...
Dame Maggie Smith as Dowager Countess of Grantham
It was amazing to see all of these costumes close up- you get to see how the different textures play against one another and all the tiny details that the screen might not necessarily pick up on and the Crawley sisters have the tiniest waists!
"Sebastian Faulks' epic love story set against the First World War, which became a modern classic when it was published in 1993, has been adapted for the screen, for the first time by Abi Morgan.
The action of the two part movie, moves between 1910 and 1916, telling the story of Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman who arrives in Amiens in Northern France to stay with the Azaire family and falls desperately in love with Isabelle Azaire. They begin an illicit and all consuming affair, but the relationship falters. Years later, Stephen finds himself serving on the Western Front in the very area where he experienced his great love. As he battles amidst the blood and gore of the trenches he meets Jack Firebrace, a tunneller who unexpectedly helps him endure the ravages of war and enables him to make peace with his feelings for Isabelle."
Interview with Clémence Poésy, who plays Isabelle-
“You can’t make anything good with too much pressure,” suggests Clémence on taking on the role of Isabelle. “Everyone has their own idea of who these characters are and if you are worrying about what it should be, you’ll never make it what it could be.” The French actress Clémence hadn’t read Birdsong before she met director Phillip Martin, but when she did she fell in love with the story of Stephen Wraysford and Isabelle Azaire. -“Birdsong isn’t as big in France as it is in England, but when I spoke to my English friends about the book I found that they were completely obsessed by it. I had no idea it was such a modern classic, so when I read it myself I thought, oh my god!”-“It’s a brilliant story about love, passion, life at its peak and then death. I think it explores such extremes and describes them beautifully and so truthfully. The characters are very modern and you don’t really realise that you’re in a period drama. That’s what we tried to get across when filming.”Although Isabelle eventually leaves Stephen, when they meet there is an incredible connection between the two characters.“There is a great sense of freedom that this passion brings to her life. Like Stephen, it’s probably the first time Isabelle has had any connection with anyone, as her life with her husband is quite miserable. I think women have that thing at some point in their life that makes them feel like a woman and this is Isabelle’s moment for that. “I have huge respect for Isabelle. I really loved how that passion makes her free. She’s not just someone’s wife or someone’s lover, she’s her own person and she leaves both her husband and her lover. When I saw how my girlfriends were talking about her I knew that I had to be true to that, because that is probably what touched them the most.”
A lot of First World War literature focuses on the huge change that society goes through as a result of the war. In Birdsong Stephen and Isabelle are not only changed by the war, but they are also transformed by meeting each other.“The people we meet in life and the loves of our life are very, very important in terms of what or who we become. Change when it is right is probably for the best, but I think when Isabelle leaves Stephen she probably goes on to become more depressed than she was before she met him.“I think Stephen is changed in a different way to Isabelle. He is a beautiful character because he is moved by love and by life and he is changed deeply by his experience in the trenches.“Anyone who has gone through that trauma lives with it, so although I think Stephen is changed by Isabelle, he is also made a completely different man by what he has seen. He has witnessed people dying and he has watched what men can do to each other. It is seeing how love can help and hatred can destroy.”Stephen and Isabelle have an amazing chemistry and Eddie and Clémence bring this chemistry to life on screen.“What was great about Eddie is that he didn’t avoid the subject of the love scenes - we always felt we could talk to each other about them. Being completely scared before a scene is good though. It means that it isn’t just a regular sex scene that you have in other films; I felt that we were more ourselves. Philip insisted on spending a proper amount of time on the scenes and he stopped directing us at points, which was terrifying, hopefully they are okay though.“I suppose filming the scenes with Eddie made the job a bit easier, but it still wasn’t easy. Eddie makes everyone feel really special though. He’s lovely, gentle and genuinely interested in everyone. He’s great -he’s got everything that guy, it’s a bit annoying really.” (Interview from the BBC website).
Birdsong costumes designed by Charlotte Walter...
Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Wraysford and Clemence Poesy as Isabelle Azaire
Clemence Poesy as Isabelle Azaire
The first time Stephen sets eyes on Isabelle, she is dressed in the beautiful blue gown shown above. The embroidered detailing is exquisite and the shades of blue works beautifully paired with the cream under dress. The greek key belt adds a touch of gold to the costume, giving it a feeling of wealth. The colour palette for Isabelle really suits her pale complexion and blonde hair. The shawl (shown left) although muted in colour and print works really well with the pale blue and white of the gown. The costume is gorgeous- in fact all of Isabelle's costumes are beautiful!
Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Wraysford and the Birdsong Boys
"We couldn't find enough uniforms in London - and so decided to make them in Poland. Charlotte Walter the costume designer tracked down a company using looms that made exactly the same cloth the original uniforms, and under the watchful eye of the curator of costumes at the Imperial War Museum, Martin Boswell." says director Phillip Martin.
The costuming for Birdsong is exquisite from the gritty, distressed uniforms of the soldiers on the front to the crisp suits and beautiful gowns of pre-war France, Charlotte Walker has done a great job.
Great Expectations- Costumes Designed by Annie Symons.
No one can make a lavish and engrossing costume drama quite like the BBC, as has been proved time and again with so many critically acclaimed and popular audience hits like 2005's beautifully made Bleak House and its successor Little Dorrit .Now comes a new version of Charles Dickens beloved, emotionally complex Great Expectations, deemed one of the great British novels of all time, and set around the mysterious Satis House and the adventures of the orphan Pip, guided into his destiny as a gentleman by an unknown benefactor. It has an all-star cast portraying the books memorable characters, including Gillian Anderson as the ghostly and manipulative Mrs Havisham, wandering the corridors of her equally decayed estate in her crumpled fading wedding dress, Ray Winstone as the escaped fugitive Abel Magwitch, Poirot's David Suchet as the clever and malevolent lawyer Jaggers, and, playing the all-important lead role of Pip, The Pillars Of The Earth star Douglas Booth.
Great Expectations BBC Trailer
Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham
"There is a sudden hush. At first you scarcely notice Gillian Anderson, a slip of a thing standing barefoot on the staircase. She looks extraordinary. Her pallor is marked by dark smudges under her eyes. Her hair is girlishly arranged in curls at the front, but a dense forest at the back. Her flowing, ivory silk dress is discoloured and tattered, which makes her look ethereal and ghostly."
'We've got about eight versions of her dress as it decays through the film,' Annie Symons, the costume designer, says. (Opening in 1822, the story spans 10 years.) 'Gillian gets in it and rips it, she's brilliant at that.'
Miss Havisham is one of literatures best characters, the woman left at the alter on her wedding day, who spends the rest of her life mourning her lost happiness. She lives in her wedding dress and it is as if time has stood still in Satis House. The decaying of the house and her attire represents the decaying within Miss Havisham's own personality. Annie Symon's costume for Miss Havisham is eerily beautiful- showing a ghost of her former self. The decayed layers of white and the simple cut of the gown marry together to create a hauntingly beautiful costume.
Vanessa Kirby as Estella and Douglas Booth as Pip
Vanessa Kirby as Estella
I love the cut of Pip's costumes, and the use of print for his waistcoats. He really appears as an up and coming gentleman- a man of fortune. The colours of all the costumes reflect the darkness of the Dickens period and the story.
The costumes for Estella are particularly beautiful, they reflect her cold personality, but still show off the character's beauty. "You must know that I have no heart... Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt... and, of course if it ceased to beat, I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no sympathy- sentiment- nonsense."- Estella Havisham, Great Expecations by Charles Dickens I particularly like the white ball gown (above) the starkness of the white contrasts amazingly with the red of her corsage (which unfortunately is not shown in the image). The colours of Estella's costumes are more muted which I believe adds to her character- and reflects the world Dickens has created, but still maintains Estella's beauty.
Overall, I believe costume designer Annie Symons has done an amazing job in bringing the characters to life and re-creating the world of Dickens.
