La Bricoleuse

In the third year of graduate study, our students complete several capstone projects, one of which is the historical reproduction. For this project, they choose a garment from our collection of antique garments, the Costar Archive. They must study the garment closely and then reproduce it as closely as possible. Often the source garment is very fragile, oddly-sized, and not a garment which could or would be worn onstage. Our students reproduce the pattern of the source garment, but adjusted/altered to the measurements of a modern physique.

Third year graduate student Denise Chukhina has completed and photographed her historical reproduction project, a replica of this 1895-1905-ish velvet bodice. (You can read all about the garment itself at the link, and see several detail shots of its embellishments and design features.)

We had FOUR students present their final creative draping capstone projects recently, and i've got some fun photos to share. This project is the final one of their graduate career--it's got to be something with significant structural/material challenges, and they really run the gamut.

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In the third year, the students in our program produce a collection of projects which constitute the equivalent of a thesis. The creative draping project is one of these, in which students choose a design with some type of structural support inside it, typically something elaborate and bizarre. This year, our two graduates chose projects by contemporary couture designers Roberto Capucci and Alexander McQueen. ( Read more... )

Judy Adamson's period pattern class recently presented some fabulous half-form projects, as they moved out of Regency into the fantastical sleeve shapes of the 1830s! These students drape and draft their patterns from research images, generating the piece shapes completely themselves. They replicate the research gown as closely as possible to the depicted source, full scale on the half.

In addition to those projects, i also just snapped a pic of the 3rd years' corset projects which they completed and presented this morning!

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Ballet bodice and tutu construction methods are one area of focus all of our grads are required to explore in their third year as part of their collection of thesis projects [1]. Sometimes these projects are underwritten by ballet companies as part of our Supported Research program; the company will provide the rendering and materials and receive the costumes in return. This year, unfortunately, ballet companies are quite strapped for cash and could not participate, so all the grads did theirs as conceptual projects instead.

I have some final photos of 2009 MFA graduate Jacki Blakeney Armit's rendition of a snowflake ballerina costume design from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite.

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Jacki constructed the bodice and basque (the upper part of the tutu-panty) and then dyed them using an ombre technique, so the color gradually progressed from darkest at the ballerina's waist, growing lighter as it went up/down to white. The tulle layers of the tutu were also dyed progressively darker, so that they would match the color value and saturation level change of the bodice and basque. My only criticism is that the sparkle mesh of the upper bodice (which was not custom dyed, but was purchased as shown) needs a slight dip to blend better into the ballerina's skintone.

I wish i had a photograph of the original rendering from which this costume was constructed for comparison; that's something to make certain i remember to document next year.



[1] I believe the theory behind this is that since professional ballet companies make up a significant area of potential employment for our graduates, a comprehensive knowledge of production techniques for the creation of ballet costumes is a useful avenue of study, in terms of maximizing their future employability in the field. Even if a student's focus is, say, men's tailoring, it's better for one's overall career/resume to be able to work producing a new ballet in between tailoring jobs than to make up the downtimes doing office-temping or waiting tables.