The character Pagliacci, leader of a group of traveling performers. His real character name is Canio, Pagliacci is his performing name. His outer vinyl suit is the costume of the Pagliacci character. In the opera he sings his most moving number about his betrayal by his wife while suiting up into a clown costume --his Pagliacci character, in order to go onstage and perform the act with his wife Nedda.
Columbina, wife of Pagliacci and love-interest character. Her character name is Nedda. She is involved with another character named Silvio. At the end of the opera she is murdered by her husband Canio, in his onstage personna Pagliacci.
Xander Gordon, my male model.
Charlene Beecroft, my female model.
Milivoj Poletan checking my pattern alterations for Pagliacci's suit. Mili is the tailor I assist at Utah Opera.
Mock-up for Pagliacci's suit. The concept here is that while you see the formal comedic costume which is the Pagliacci character, because it is constructed of clear vinyl you also see simultaneously into his heart -- the feelings of the husband Canio.
This ruff ended up being too structured and caused me not a few problems. I finished it about 2 hours before the show.
This shows my experimental painting. I wanted to paint a brocade style pattern over the vinyl to mimic a modern entertainer's suit.
The inital mock-up for Columbina's outer costume.
You can see the difference in proportions in the skirt levels. I was trying to figure out how to construct the lampshade skirt I had drawn. The underslip is a negligee to highlight the seductive qualities of Nedda - the actor character whose role is the Columbina love-interest in the traveling troupe.
You can see the actual boning which will be the structure of the underskirt here.
While I could sew some of it by machine, the great majority ended up being a construction process by hand. It took two weeks, 3 hours a night 5 days a week to finish this part.
Hand sewing through vinyl:).
A second fitting on my model Charlene. Here I am just measuring the hem for her slip, which was bias cut.
Fitting the ruff here.
This is the brocade pattern I found to use on Pagliacci's suit. It was actually printed on a kleenex! I enlarged it 15%. I think I could have enlarged it even a little more.
I painted the vinyl for the suit by hand. First I drew out all the pattern pieces for the suit onto the vinyl. Then I placed the printed and enlarged pattern underneath and painted over it. I could never have free-handed this! As you can imagine, it took quite awhile as well. I guestimate 13 to 15 hours.
These are the materials I gathered to decorate Columbina's mask. I found a base form at at party supplies store for $1.99. That beat anything I could make. Also the shape was good and sturdy -- far better than that plastic junk at JoAnn's.
This is a close-up of what the mask ended up looking like. My friend Carmen, who is the milliner craftsperson at the opera helped me put it together.
Here I am fitting Xander in a final fitting. In the initial mockup we had problems with the vinyl sticking together where the jacket overlapped the pants. Fortunately the overpainting took care of that. I tried other things like silicone spray, and there was talk of baby powder and other lubricants. Thank goodness I didn't have to go to far down that path!
I haven't adjusted the ruff yet. While the structure is beautiful in this foto, the one I had drawn in the rendering was looser. Also the tight construction of this ruff tended to result in a head-on-a-plate look which was not exceedlingly pleasant.
I fashioned an undercollar (with Ken's help) and figured a way to let the ruff lie down a bit at the back and shoulders. This meant making it 2" bigger around the neck and not connecting the pleated part completely at the top of the neck band.
Ken Burrell was my makeup artist. Here he is making up Xander in a practice session. I greatly appreciated his help as I was totally distracted the night of the show and wouldn't have been any help to my models in getting the made up. Plus he did a brilliant job. Love working with him.
Here is Xander with half of his face made up as a practice for the character Pagliacci. Pagliacci is traditionally portrayed in white face. I put a modern twist on it with the spiked green hair and only one black shape suggestive of the traditional clown markings.
This is Charlene in practice hair and makeup. I had intended to bring copies of these practice makeups the night of the show so we could remember what we decided on. Whoops -- I totally forgot. Thankfully Ken still managed to hit it right on. The purple plumes in her hair were fantastic.
I ordered 22 plastic beaded garlands to cover the skirt. The idea was to cover the lampshade skirt with beaded garlands to create a whimsical festive outer costume. I had rendered fuschia beads originally, but couldn't find that color, so I ordered purple disco beads. They looked fantastic.
Here I am checking out the beads on the skirt shape. Carmen suggested attaching the beaded strings to a waist tape. This was immensely helpful -- it would have taken immeasureably longer otherwise to get those beads onto the skirt! The feather moments were fortunate happenstance moments. I tried black sequins and shiny things, but really wanted feathery moments for the center front. I couldn't find any smallish plumes with the right volume though. Then I saw someone with some marabou one day, and bam! that was it.
You can see the beads attached to the waist tape here. Total time spent attaching beads to skirt -- about 13 hours.
This is my artsy shot of the makeup workspace backstage at the venue. The showcase took place at the city center Mariott here in Salt Lake. The other showcase designer, Melonie Mortensen, and I attended the black-tie dinner beforehand, as well as our costume shop manager Rose Brown. We were honored guests! The food was excellent.
This is a shot of our backstage rack. Yes, racks matter to me. Hanging things right is very important to anyone who spends hours making garments.
This foto was quite blurry, but as a artsy shot of Coumbina's mask I rather like it.
There were displays of our renderings, concept statements and research set up in the hall outside the soiree and ballrooms at the Mariott.
This is a foto of my original thumbnail sketch. I love using whatever free-floating piece of paper available to capture my ideas. Especially napkins, for some reason. I sketched this in a restaurant in March.
This is the hallway at the Mariott. you can kind of see how the displays are tucked here and there along the hall. Also the community college fashion institute painted parasols for display. It ended up looking pretty cool.
This is our runway space. I thought it would be more of a thrust runway into the audience space, but we worked it. We were grateful to the sceneshop to setting it up and actually having some lighting.
Here are Ken and Xander working the makeup the night of the show.
Charlene getting ready for makeup.
A closer up shot of the finished beaded Coumbina costume.
A closeup - if you see it- of the pink handkerchief in Pagliacci's breast pocket. I made functional welt pockets in the vinyl suit. It made me happy -- and was far easier than working in traditional fabrics:).
These fotos are blurry due to the low lighting. We had a last minute camera difficulty so we shot all of these on my small Nikon digital. We are lucky to have these! Anyway, this is Ms. Rose being interviewed by Jeff Smith, who was our emcee.
Here I am in my interview/presentation moment with Jeff. It was rather close circumstances and way too fast to really present my ideas. Maybe next year...
This is the final tableau moment with Pagliacci and Columbina on the runway.
Christopher McBeth is making the concluding remarks to the showcase presentation at the after party for the opening night of Madam Butterfly. We are all lined up behind. Julie and my mum got me 4 dozen white roses. I am enjoying them immensely.
My fellow designer Melonie Mortensen on the right and very good friend Tami on the left.
Columbina/Charlene mingling with the crowd after the walk at the after-party.
Our full costume showcase group. You can see Melonie's models here. She presented two designs from Madame Butterfly. They were based on a character concept of butterflys emerging from their cocoons.
A shot of Charlene as Columbina in her full ensemble.
A moment with Xander as Pagliacci.
I had to make a sepia toned version of this foto as I love it. Me as a designer (!!) with my characters Columbina and Pagliacci.
In color here - is there one you like better?
Thank goodness we made it. Onto a new project.
