Casting a half scale dress form

First off, I need to give credit to the faculty and staff of Ohio University's costume department, who hosted the USITT Costume Symposium a few years ago. At the symposium, they had a half-scale form two-part mold out on display one day and handed out instruction sheets on how to cast your own forms. I can't take credit for this idea! We only decided to give it a try.

Half scale forms are often used in draping classes (though we don't use them in our program), and by designers figuring out how to create their visions in 3D. Madeline Vionnet used to work out her bias dresses initially on half-scale forms. Julie Taymor is known for figuring out her puppet structures on small forms, and the method for creating creature-costume pod-bodies taught at the Ohio symposium involves figuring your foam structure out in half-scale before sizing up to full scale on these forms. Costume Shop Manager Adam Dill and I decided to give the casting process a shot to evaluate whether it would be a potential new project in my crafts courses.

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