From Page to Stage: The Mistress
In this first post of my new series 'From Page to Stage' I'm exploring the design and construction process for the costume of The Mistress from Lev Tolstoy's The Fruits of Enlightenment, directed by James Robert Carson.
This was one of my favourite projects to work on. The costumes were full of colour and excitement and I got to be really ambitious with my designs. Against Melissa Lim's stark, white set design the costume really had to pop and the matriarch of the household had to be in the centre of all of the chaos with a bold look. I was heavily inspired by the designs of fashion house Ralph& Russo as well as the fashion of model, Carmen Dell'Orefice. Tolstoy presents a character obsessed with her appearance, she is "tightly laced" and neurotic and I want her costume to feel as if she could burst out of it at any moment from sheer over excitement.
The colour red seemed like the perfect choice for the character who loved to be the centre of the universe and to show her fierce, aggressive nature. She was an overbearing character and loved to be in charge.
With her make-up, Angie Peña-Arenas and I wanted to portray the decadence and wealth of The Mistress. We took inspiration from drag queen Phi Phi O'Hara who, in one of her looks, surrounded her eyes with pearls. We thought this added to this exaggerated and heightened look of the piece and worked well to show off to the audience her wealth. Along a similar vein we added subtle hints of gold around the eyes and finished the look with a classic red lip. We did not want to over do her make-up so that the focus was on the dress.
To construct the look, Rosa Caines herself joined together one of my mother's old dresses and a gown we found in the UEA costume store to develop an entirely new dress and match my original drawing. I think we were both delighted with the outcome and I'm so happy with how it worked on stage.
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