Billie on Costume Design - pt1

Have you ever decided to try exploring the wonders of stage and costume design? I really hope you answer this with an enthusiastic shout "yes"! When you answer yes I will continue on with my material… Okay so you didn’t shout yes, but I’m still going to finish what I was writing.

When I was in a college production of Blood Brothers, I decided to explore the world of the behind the scenes. While taking on the role of Mrs Lyons. I’m going to guide you through my process of designing the stage and costume.

 

To start off with I researched the eras Blood Brothers was wrote in, I gathered information, hoarded pictures and religiously studied the fashions the formed a scrap book collage of everything I could find. Scrap books for me help me see all thing needed, for others they can do brain maps etc.

 

I also went to see a production done by professionals, but I couldn’t get over the stage presence of Marti Pellow. I loved how they did it all, it gave me unreal expectations of how our stage would look, but in the end I didn’t paint the backgrounds or anything. I shouldn’t be harsh it looked great for our budget, which was next to nothing. However I was so inspired by the costume choices and the ensemble.

I then hit up all of the charity and vintage shops; my favourite one must have seen me at least 30 times in 3 months. We did our production with two casts, so it would be evenly graded, which meant I had to find costumes that fitted and suited two different people. This became super stressful when one of the leads was a 10 and the other was at least a size 16. When designing a costume everything and everyone has to look like they belong. The stage is just as or maybe more important than the actors themselves. You can’t have a set that looks like a rough estate and having the residents dressed to the nines, looking flawless. You can’t have a mansion with the housewife wearing a tracksuit. I had so much trouble getting this into some cast members heads…

We pulled off the show, however I have not being able to contact back from the college to see if they will send me picture from the performance. The show looked good. Not professional but good.

Was this helpful? I’d like to think it was.