Final Year Costume - Photoshoot

Photos From My shoot at Batesmill in Huddersfield of The Corpse Bride & Victor Van Dort.

Final Year Costume Project - The Corpse Bride

For my final Year Project I decided to design the costumes for a Theatre production of the Corpse Bride. I made a few alterations to the story line. The Main thing I changed was that The Corpse Bride died in 1745 just over 100 years before the actual story line. I looked into how caged and trapped each of the characters were and this inspired me to look into cages and fashions around cages.
Rather than filling this with all my separate designs for each character, this is my final cast line up for all of my characters.

From left to Right: Mrs Plum, Black Widow Spider, Scraps The Dog, Mr BoneJangles, The Corpse Bride, Victor Van Dort, Victoria Everglot, Mayhew.

Placement Year

I was lucky enough to be on a course in which I could have a whole year to gain experience and placements within the costume industry.
During this year  most of my placements were costume making based, which has really helped me through my final year, generally making me a confident costume maker.
Here is a list of the placements I gained during the period from June 2012- August 2013

UK Productions, Blackpool - Costume Maker
UK Productions, Blackpool, 42nd Street - Shadowed Wardrobe
James Maciver Costumes, Disco inferno - Costume Maker & Wardrobe
James Maciver Costumes - Costume Maker
The Royal Shakespeare Company - 2 Week Placement, Breaking Down & Women's Wear
Rainbow Productions - Costume Maker
Bristol Costume Services - Costume Maker
Birmingham Costume Hire - Costume Maker

Gaining a large amount of work experience has helped me during my final year but also has made me sure that i would like to go on as a costume maker in my future career.

Hobson's Choice design project Second Year

During the Second term (while I was making the previous costume) we were also set a small design project. 

this was based on the book, Hobson's choice. Our project was to design the costumes specifically for a ballet. 

I began with roughs for each character.

Hobson is the father of three, he is a drunk, this meant that i would not have to design his costume specifically for a ballet, like his young daughters underneath.

My Design For Maggie Hobson the eldest of the three daughters.

This Design is for Mrs Hepworth, a wealthy customer who is of much higher status than the others, i felt it was more important to show this through costume and have her dance much less than the girls.

University work - second year Gormenghast

Yesterday I officially handed in my final year costumes as part of my degree at the university of Huddersfield.
Therefore i am taking this large amount of spare time to catch up on all the projects i have completed during my four years, obviously starting from the beginning. First year was a general teaching of Construction, Design and Textiles but all these projects were kept separate. Second year was the first time that I was able to Read and break down a script (this being Gormenghast) design the costumes for a set of 10 characters, then in the final term go a head and create this costume.
The character that i made the costume for was a character called "The Thing" the script described her as a strange creature which lived outside the walls of the castle, due to the fact that i set my castle surrounded by the sea i designed her as a girl who has be brought up to live in the sea, so much so she has merged almost fish like.

This was my first design for this character, i was inspired by shapes within water and shells.

I was able to dye my fabric up, using dylons scrunching up the fabric while it dries created great 

interesting water marks.

Intricate detailing on the top of the bodice.

Final Photoshoot with my Model Catherine