New Nutcracker costumes

 Two years ago now, Scott Dolphin (scottdolphinstudio.com) and I started the difficult process of making new Nutcracker costumes. Since Nutcracker is the money maker for any ballet company, the costumes for it need to be beautiful and in good shape.
After more than 25 years of hard wearing, ours were well past needing to be replaced.

 Old Waltz of the flowers costumes

Scott made new designs for the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Waltz demi-soloists costumes that were style updates of the original costumes.
 I made new tutus for the Waltz corps de ballet, Waltz demi-Soloists, Dew Drop fairy, and the Sugar Plum fairy.
The artistic director wanted copies of the original costumes not new costumes which meant that I had to find tutu net in the same colors. I took the original tutus to the store and tried to find matching colors but had little luck.

Old Dew drop bodice, Old Sugar Plum, Old Waltz demi-solist costumes

As I have mentioned previously, there is a fashion in colors and after 25+ years, the colors that these tutus were made of were no longer available. It did not help that the tutus had also faded significantly and so the colors were no longer true. I found out after I made the tutus that the original corps de ballet tutus were red and gold (not rose pink, orange and peach as I thought), the demi-soloists were olive green and teal (not lime green and grey blue), Dew drop was white and silver (not ivory and grey) and Sugar Plum was white with almost bubble gum pink layers and pants.
The Dew Drop fairy was easy as white and white sparkle tutu net is widely available. The pink tutu net for Sugar plum was also not a problem. Scott choose a lovely dusty rose velvet for Sugar plum's new bodice and basque. He also designed the new demi-soloists to be up-side down bachelor buttons in shades of Celedon green, light sapphire blue, Williamsburg blue and gold.
Scott and I tried contacting every supplier of tutu net we could find but were unable to find the colors we (thought) we wanted, when we wanted it. Standard tutu net comes in a fairly limited range of colors: white, ivory, rose pink, hunter green, black etc. Everything is possible with enough time and money (i.e. special ordering and special manufacturing) but our budget did not run to that. The solution was to use tulle for some of the layers, as it was readily available in more suitable colors and hand dyeing lots of white netting. The only orange I had been able to find was extremely bright Halloween orange, which was not what was needed.

Hand dyeing netting for waltz corp tutus

Scott was an expert at dying fabrics and had dyed the tutu pants for me. I on the other hand had never dyed anything. At that point we were faced with an emergency because it was less than a month to the performance, I had six half made corps tutus, no light gold tutu net and Scott was busy making other costumes.
"How hard could it be"? were my famous last words.
Well I soon found out. A few tips to the novel, tutu net dyer:
1) Go to the RIT  site and read all the instructions, many times, write them down carefully before starting
2) Do your dying during day-light, not starting at say 9 p.m. after your children have gone to bed
3) Always do several test strips to make sure you get the color you want, not what you think it is on the screen.
4) When washing the netting after dying, use even less soap then you think you need.

I started the process of dying, eleven yards of tutu net (cut into strips), at around 10 p.m. By the time I had heated up the dye, dyed the net, washed it out in copious amounts of water to remove the unused dye and put it into my washing machine to wash it was late, very late (or early as it was way after midnight). I knew from washing out the old tutus in my bathtub, that a little soap made a lot of bubbles. Eleven yards of tutu net, even with 1 teaspoon of Woolite makes a lot of bubbles when agitated in a washing machine. I watched in horror as the little window on my front-loading washing machine filled up with bubbles and then slowly orange foam started to erupt from the washing machine hose as the rinse cycle started! Not what you want at 2 a.m. believe me.

I ran the rinse cycle a second time and that took care of the problem. I then had to hang the net up to dry as it could not go in the dryer. In the end the color was a perfect match to the corp de ballet tutu if not the original. I felt a bit like a crazy Rapunzel with all that orange netting.

Eleven yards of hand dyed tutu net, and the old Waltz tutus

After that is was a matter of pleating and sewing like crazy to get the tutus finished.  My assistant Carrie and I sewed as if we were possessed and sewed the last ruffle on the day before the dress rehearsal. The day before the performance, I was still steaming and tacking the corps tutus, Scott was finishing the demi-soloists and Sugar Plum and we were both a bit insane at that point.

New Waltz corp de ballet tutu

Waltz demi-soloist tutu

 New Sugar Plum tutu before tacking

Here is what the costumes looked like upon completion.

New Waltz Demi-solist costume, designed by Scott Dolphin, tutu by Hilary Sharp

New Sugar Plum tutu, designed by Scott Dolphin

 New Sugar Plum Bodice, design Scott Dolphin

Last year I  made a new maid's dress and a second Sugar plum costume

Second Sugar plum bodice, plate and tutu by Hilary Sharp

and an exact copy of the Marzipan girl's costume (see below). The original costume was too fragile to be altered any more. The original costume was made of a lilac taffeta and a light two tone teal fabric (possibly a sateen ) and had a Schifli lace overlay.

 Bodice of original Marzipan

Many years ago, when the original costume had been made, Schifili laces were still manufactured in New Jersey and other mills in the United States. All have gone out of business. Schifli laces are now only made in Switzerland, India and China and are very expensive,  starting at $150/yd. I was extremely lucky to find some affordable lace at Lacemart. The lady who runs this store, collects laces mostly bought from the New Jersey factories when they went out of business.
At this point I was a pro at dying fabric, but it still took me about six hours of making test strips, and then dying the actual fabric to get the right shade of teal. The result was very convincing and it fit the dancer perfectly.The original costume had been made for a much smaller dancer and so was much too short in the bodice and skirt for the other dancer.  Dancing is hard on costumes and this costume had been in constant use for over 15 years being let out and taken in for many dancers. Having a second costume in a different size, is always helpful.
Initially there was a plan to update the Waltz corps de ballet bodices but this had to be put off due to time and budget constraints. To see what the costumes looked like go to  Nutcracker on stage

 New Marzipan dress

Original Marzipan dress

Nutcracker on Stage

Nutcracker: Johann Studier and Rachel Myers as Cavalier and Sugar Plum
(Sugar plum costum design, bodice and plate Scott Dolphin, photo and tutu Hilary Sharp)

Here are some of the costumes as they appeared on stage, enjoy.
Dew drop fairy 2010:

Nutcracker: Dew Drop fairy, (tutu and photo Hilary Sharp)

Waltz of the flowers 2010
Waltz of the flowers 2011:

Nutcracker Sugar Plum Fairy 2010:

Nutcracker with Rachel Meyers and Johann Studier

 Nutcracker: Sugar plum and Marzipan (costumes by Hilary Sharp) 2011

Going nuts in stages: Costuming Nutcracker

You know that the holidays are fast approaching when adds start to appear for the Nutcracker. Every large and small ballet company it seems puts on this show in a multitude of versions: family friendly, classical, "edgy".  For almost all ballet companies Nutcracker makes or breaks them financially so they are almost obliged to perform it.
I remember watching an interview with a famous ballet dancer (it might have been Baryshnikov), who said that for many professional dancers, Nutcracker is their least favorite ballet because it is hard for them to envision who they are. In Romeo and Juliet, the roles are clear, it is a tragic love story, same with Swan Lake. Even Sleeping beauty, Cinderella or Snow White have a clear division of persona but not so Nutcracker.
Depending on the version of Nutcracker, well it is all a bit foggy. Are the Cavalier and the Sugar Plum Fairy an item?  or is it really Clara and the Nutcracker Prince all grown up? Is Clara a little girl dreaming or a young women doing well what exactly? And who or what is that Drosselmayer guy? Friendly uncle, a rather naughty party guest (in one version I saw, he was a bit over friendly shall we say with the ladies at the party), creepy old man? I think you get my point.
From a costumers' perspective, creating costumes for Nutcracker can be a challenge too, because the costumes have to make "your"  version stand out positively so as to compete for the public's money. At the same time there are some Nutcracker "traditions" and specific styles that you have to adhere to.
Here is a wonderful little video clip about how costumes are created at the National Ballet of Canada. Boy would I love to intern there!!!!

In almost every version I have seen, the beginning of the ballet takes place at a Christmas party set somewhere in the late 1800's. The ballet, which is based on a story by Hoffman written in 1891, premiered in St. Petersburg in 1892, so in the party scene the costumes have some sort of late Victorian feel to them. In the 1890's, Frederick Worth, was the top dress designer, along with  Laman, Chanceau and others. The women's outfits went from a sleeveless off-the shoulder bodice (as shown below) with a  flounced, trained skirt, to square or scoop necked bodices, with puffed sleeves and A-Lined gored skirts.

Dress by Frederick Worth, 1890

Paris fashion plate, 1892-1893

Both styles of outfits (they were always bodices and skirts, not dresses) can be more easily adapted to the stage, because they were designed for ladies to dance in. It is hard to dance in a dress with a long train, big bustle or huge hoop skirt.

The men wore what we would recognize today as "white tie" suits, with long tails in the back. If the men are going to be dancing, the tails present a problem and some sort of modification would be made.  It is really hard to do turns if you are being slapped by long strips of fabric.
After the party scene comes the scenes with the Rat or Mouse King, dancing Mice, the battle between tin soldiers and mice and the Nutcracker.
Animal costumes and the Nutcracker costume are ones that most dancers love to hate. They tend to have head covering masks, which if improperly cleaned and stored are a source of dust, mold and bugs. If the masks are not well made, they are cumbersome,  hard to see out of, let alone breath comfortably. The masks can be made of buckram, foam, Fosshape (a special thermoplastic material)or even paper mache. Here is a small video clip from Tutu.com where you can take classes to learn how to make spectacular mask:

The second part of the Nutcracker is pure ballet with lots of tutus. Depending on the version of the ballet, the snow scene often has longer Romantic style tutus and the Waltz of the flowers has classical tutus. In Balanchine's version, the dancer's in the Waltz of the flowers wear something reminiscent of a tiered Spanish skirt and the Dew Drop fairy has a tiny tunic like dress.

Dew Drop Fairy, Waltz of the Flowers

Clara sometimes remains a little girl in her nightgown or in some versions she becomes the Sugar Plum Fairy. In Russian version of the ballet, Clara and the Nutcracker prince travel around the world visiting different countries: Spain, France, Turkey, China, Russia. This type of theme was very common in Russian ballets of the time (think Swan lake where each prospective princess comes with a National dance, even Sleeping beauty has something along those lines) and allowed nationally inspired dancing to be incorporated into the ballets.
In other versions, Clara visits the Land of the Sweets, and although often the costumes are still Nationally themed, they have candy names and the costumes can be more fanciful.

Vzevolozhsky's  original design for the Merlitons

The dance of the Merlitons or Reed fluits for instance is called French/France in the Russian version of the ballet and called Marzipan other versions. The costumes for some reason also often have some sort of Shepardess feel to them (possibly a veiled reference to Marie Antoinette who like to pretend she was a herding sheep?).
Finally the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince or Cavalier make their appearance. Many people think that sugar plums are, well plummy colored (pink-purple) but actually they are a type of multi-colored candy. In the Russian themed version of the Nutcracker, the Sugar Plum fairy is always dressed in white and gold. 

Jenifer Ringer as Sugar Plum Fairy, and Jared Angle as Cavalier

Roberta Marquez and Valeri Hristov as The Sugar Plum Fairy and The Prince, December 2006

Most other ballet companies have the Sugar Plum in some sort of pink tutu, although in the New York City ballet's version the Sugar Plum fairly is wearing a very pale green tutu.

Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier, Oregon State ballet