Odette-Odile headpieces

 Swan lake headpieces: Odette (Swan queen, white swan) and Odile (Black swan)
There are many different styles of headpieces for these two roles. Thanks to the movie  Black Swan,  the only style you can find via Google seems to be copies (both good, bad and ugly) of the ones seen in the movie.
Mine were inspired by Laura Cuthbertsons' Odette headpiece, as seen here:

 and Polina Seminova's Odile headpiece as seen here:

Swan Lake's Queen Mother

 A Titian inspired Queen's gown:

I decided to make the queen mother's gown more as a whim than anything else. I love reading other costumers blog's and one that I discovered recently is Jennifer Thompson's blog:  Festive Attyre. I was especially inspired by her Italian Renaissance gowns and the corded corsets intrigued me.
It looked like so much fun making something like this and "How hard could it be"? I did not want to spend any money making a sample gown, which I did not think anyone would wear, so I asked around and was given several old prom dresses. At the thrift store I bought a 100% linen, plus sized dress and one ball of hemp twine for the corset and set to work.
The first thing I needed to make for an authentic looking  Italian Renaissance style dress was a chemise or camica. I had a few yards of cotton lawn in my fabric stash and although a camica is usually made of handkerchief weight linen I decide to use it. I followed the directions on the Festive Attyre websites to make what basically was a three rectangles sewed together  with gussets under the arm. The sleeves are about two to three times as long as the arm length so that they can be pulled up in and over the sleeves to create big poofs.
 I finished the top edge of the shirt and the bottom of the sleeves with some smocking and gold and pearl glass beads.

Italian style chemise: camica

smocked top edge of camica

front of linen corded corset

side back lacing on corded corset

Following Jennifer's descriptions I also made a corded corset out of the 100% linen dress I bought at the thrift store with four 1/16th inch hemp cords pulled into each channel.
After having worked with Rigeline boning and spiral steel, making a corded corset with hemp twine was awesome and easy. I machine sewed the channels, top to bottom on the linen, then using a loop turner I pulled the hemp cording through the channels. Then I sewed across the top and bottom to seal the channels, trimmed off the excess cording and finally covered the edges with bias strips of linen.
I used side, back, spiral lacing. I sewed two strips of heavy duty twill tape, with two parallel lines of tape for threading the ribbon. The details are all as Jennifer described in her blog.
For the dress I used two periwinkle satin prom dresses and some pale green and gold brocade which my mother had given me.  The brocade was left over from some Christmas decorations but had become water damaged in a flood in my parents' basement. By turning the brocade, the water stains were covered up and it looked better. I also turned the satin so it was less shiny and used two strips of  a flocked satin to outline the front of the skirt. At the back, I cartridge pleated the skirt to the bodice.
Finally the sleeves were made of some upholstery fabric, again from my mother's stash. I made them a little darker by spray painting them with Design Master, floral spray paint and lined them with fabric from one of the prom dresses. I sewed some metal rings to the top of the sleeves so that they could tie onto the bodice and by pulling the sleeves up create some nice poofs.
The dress turned out really well I think, especially since it cost me all of $5.00.  I am thinking of making others to order using quality materials, now that I have worked out a pattern  and basic design.

queen mother's Titian inspired dress.

I also took a headpiece which I had originally made for Cinderella Fairy Autumn but was not used and redecorated it for the queen. This is what the dress looked like on stage:

Queen mother and Siegfried, Ryan Camou ( Swan lake)

22 Swans a dancing

Ithaca ballet Swan lake

Not just swanning around here: creating 22 Swans

As I wrote in a previous post, this year I ended up creating  22 swan tutus for Swan lake, plus two stunning bodices and headpiece for Odette and Odile. On a whim I also made the queen mother a new Titian inspired dress and re-purposed the crown I had originally made for Cinderella fairy Autumn  for Siegfried's mother.

Before starting Cinderella I had purchased 4 bolts of white tutu net, a bolt of ivory net and we had a bolt of bridal illusion in wardrobe. The initial plan was for 16 corps de ballet swans and one swan queen but by November the numbers had grown to 18 corps de ballet, a swan queen and a black swan and after Christmas it was finally decided that 20 corps swan tutus were needed, plus two tutus for the principle dancer, plus new headpieces and bodices.
Way back in the summer I had made a start at cutting and dagging (cutting into points) layers of white tutu net. As time went by I had more and more bags of tutu net and thousands of little net triangles all over my sewing room and house.
There is nothing more sticky or itchy than tulle and tutu net. Imagine finding scraps stuck to clothing, the carpet, the furniture and even the cat. Once in a while, I or a family member would be driving crazy by intense itching. At first we thought it was some scary dermatological condition but no: it was a triangle of tutu net.
By the time I was ready to start sewing the tutus, I had cut and dagged 1100 pieces of tutu net. Let me spell that out eleven hundred pieces or 220 yards of tutu net. No matter how you spell it that is a lot  of tutu net.
Once pleated up, it took up two large plastic boxes. All 9 layers of each corps de ballet tutu was cut into points to simulate the feathers. The top layers were triple hand-pleated ivory and white bridal illusion tulle to give the tutus a  little depth and so that they had a soft look because apart from that they were to be without any ornamentation.
Once sewn up I was able to stack the tutus floor to ceiling before steaming and tacking, then the stack shrunk considerably.

Twelve white swan tutus before steaming and tacking

four white swan tutus after steaming and tacking

I managed to finish the tutus well in time and so was able to take them to the studio for the dancers to rehearse in. If you have never worn a properly made, classical tutu it can be very tricky at first. Each tutu is 12 inches in diameter, which creates a little space around each dancer. The dancers need to learn how to space themselves so as not to bump into the next girl. The dancer also cannot see her own feet and so has to be very careful what she does.

22 Swan lake tutus waiting for rehearsal at Ithaca ballet

Getting in and out of a tutu can also be tricky, you need some help getting the hooks done up. The girls came up with a very clever way of getting into their tutus quickly.

Ithaca ballet dancers getting ready for Swan lake rehearsal

I made two new patterns and designs for Odette and Odile's bodices. I designed the Odette bodice as a long line bodice, with a deep, pointed neckline and a low back.

Odette bodice in an off-white bengaline with a hand beaded overlay

The Odile bodice, would have a point front and back, sit below the waist, have a low cut neckline and a low back. Both bodices had hand beaded lace appliques for decorations. I am offering them for sale in my Etsy shop.

Back of Odile bodice

Odile bodice, corps tutu

Black velvet Odile bodice, with hand beaded lace applique

 I also made two simple wing shaped plates, according to Claudia Folts instructions in her book Finishing Touches.  I used white and ivory satin, silk and charmeuse "feathers" appliqued with silver thread to a white sparkle tulle plate for Odette. For Odile, I made black velvet, turned black silver satin and black silver mesh feathers, which I appliqued onto a black mesh wing shape with silver thread. Leila Drake of State Street Ballet graciously offered to model the costumes for me.

Leila Drake as Odette
Ithaca ballet Swan lake

Leila Drake of State Street Ballet as Odette

 

 

 

Leila Drake as Odile
Ithaca ballet Swan lake

 

 Only the tutu and headpiece were to be used for Ithaca Ballet's performance of Swan lake, so I did not sew the bodice and tutu together. One of the things I still find very difficult is getting photographs that do the costumes justice. Finally I made headpieces for Odette and Odile. The description of how these were made is posted under, topping it off.

To see Swan lake on stage click on the link.