Costume Time

Recently, I designed a show put on by Althroughz Productions called Down in the Face of God.  The post-apocalyptic saga saw a lot of distressing, especially with our gal Gavi here, a homeless outsider in a town full of teenagers. The ultimate compliment I received was when the director saw her crouching in costume and thought she was part of the set. 

Photo courtesy Corwin Evans

on pointe

What have I been doing, you may ask? Well, I've been watching a lot of 1970's movies lately, which I've found are generally  either awesome or awesomely campy, and one of those was The Turning Point (1977), a terrifically catty movie that is also the original ballet film exploring obsessive rivalry.  It even includes a scene in which The Anne Bancroft and The Shirley MacLaine end a fight spanking each other! Only in the 70's.

The 1970's and 80's was a golden era of ballet indeed (this was also when Elton John wrote "Tiny Dancer," no connection), and Alessandra Ferri was one of its stars.  Here she is in  Giselle, with a nice grain filter on Photoshop to make it look extra period.  

1950's Hybrid

Sometimes when I'm designing, I have so many inspirational images that I adore, but are so incongruous that I don't know what to do with them.  So I end up drawing a pleated, tucked, ruched, satin, plaid, velvet number that looks like one of those hybrid animals I used to make back in the day: Twisty Critters.

I find that when this is the case, the best thing to do is to take a break, come back and then sketch again without looking at my research.  This is what I did for my 1950's dame, successfully inspired by Charles James, Frank Starr, and Balenciaga.