The Red Dress

"It's THE Red Dress." That's what I've been hearing for the last few weeks while I've been making costumes for Owen Meaney. I made the muslin/mock-up for it, and D, the costumiere, was wonderful enough to let me build it. A muslin (or mock-up in theatre costuming world) is a version of the costume made out of muslin. This way, you're using inexpensive favorite to make sure it fits well and looks the way you want before you cut it out of the nice expensive fabric. After we fit the muslin on the actor, we take it apart and adjust the paper patterns as necessary. The first picture is the completed dress. We had several fittings with this dress (usually there's just 1 or 2) but finally! Underneath is a gianormous petticoat. It completes the 50s look. Torpedo boobs (vintage bra) and poofy skirt. I love the way this dress looks. Sorry for the bad lighting. I have a new-to-me camera and have yet to figure out its quirks.

Now the crazy thing about doing costumes is that weird things happen to the dress. Since the actor has to get in and out of this dress VERY quickly we had to "rig" it. So I had to sew the torpedo boob bra AND the petticoat to the dress. So when it's time for her to put this on, she can just step right into it (with her helpful wardrobe person E or J). It gets zipped up and she can just walk out on stage. Above is the dress without the petticoat so you can see the difference.

This red dress is very important in the play. It's mentioned many times. The audience actually sees the dress onstage on a mannequin before we see it on the actor. So we made 2 of the same dress. Of course the dress on the mannequin won't be the exact same, since we're going to just sew it to the dressform. Opening night for the play is on Monday. I'm excited to see it!

It was good to be back in the costume shop sewing. I was super lucky that D let me bring Sophia with me. Sewing costumes (and all of its special challenges) really gets the creative juices going.