Getting down to work

The task on Saturday was to discuss the wedding dress for Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. This is a mock-up of it in what we call calico, but the Americans call muslin. It will be an extremely ornate dress worn by the actress Bree Welch. She has not yet arrived in San Diego, so we're going as far as we can from her measurements.

During this session we were being video'd for a film being made in conjunction with the Historical Museum for a 75th Anniversary Exhibition of the Old Globe, featuring the work of the costume department.

The costume is being made by Louise Powers. Here she demonstrates for the camera how the corsage of pearl embroidery will be fitted to the bodice. We found this in a wedding gown shop, where it would have been destined for an ornate bridal gown. I've always to use one of these, but they've always seemed too OTT, but this is absolutely what is wanted.

The dress is supposed to demonstrate that her father has a great deal more money than taste and this corsage spoke to all of us as soon as we saw it!

The under-dress is a classic Elizabethan farthingale shape of ombré-d pink silk, which will help the light over-dress appear to vary its colour with the light.

We then needed to discuss the fabric that is to be used for the latter and here the Head of the Costume Shop Stacy Sutton is giving a view.

The top fabric will be multiple sun-ray pleated circles of shell-pink organza, edged with fine filigree gold.


Because my costume drawing is from the front further questions then arose about how I intended the back, and so I had to do a further drawing of the back to show what I meant.

It was particularly unnerving to have to do this with a video camera a foot away from my nose.



Here you see the final result. The original drawing of the front is on the right, with the new sketch of the back on the left, which shows how the over-dress is pinned and falls.

Next we needed to discuss the ombrè-ing of the pink silk with Teri Carignan the dyer. She is holding swatches of experimental colour tests she has made in order to find the closest match.

The shadowing of the pink will echo the way the pleating goes on the overdress, but you can't dye organza without it going floppy, so to get some movement into the colour we have to treat the under-dress to do the work for us. With us is Charlotte Devaux, who is Stacy's main assistant and the chief costume supervisor.


Afterwards we went over to the workstation of Erin Tavares who handles metal craftwork and fabrication. She has questions concerning the armature that will support Bianca's ruff in order to make it stand out horizontally. What she has done is absolutely right for the needs of the costume we have been discussing.

A useful Saturday afternoon!

As a final glimpse of work in progress elsewhere in a costume shop of 50 people: here work is proceeding to create body padding for the extremely fat Prince of Wales in Bennett's The Madness of King George, later in the season.