Swans and flowers and tutus oh my

 I haven't posted for a while due to the large amount of work I have had on recently.
After finishing the Civil war ball gowns I had to hustle to full fill an order for Swan lake bodice overlays and plates for a customer, make a dress, veil and hats for my brother's wedding, sew 20+ costumes for a local dance recital, work on a gold metallic tutu for a customer and work on an enormous number of alterations.
First things first. A customer contacted me about Swan lake tutu decorations. I began by drawing a number of sketches for the customer so that she could choose what she liked and could afford.

Sketches of bodice overlays.

After that I ordered the rhinestones (Rhinestone guy's premium hot-fix crystals which are awesome), selected trims, cut the bodice overlay shapes, cut out 164 fabric "feathers" and the wing shapes.

fabric "feathers" for San lake plates

To make the bodice overlays, I pinned then sewed a false nude panel and silver rim onto netting, then glued hackle feathers and applied hot-fix rhinestones.

Swan lake bodice decoration overlays

To make the swan wing shaped decorations, I pinned and appliqued the feathers to heavy duty interfacing shapes, sewed this onto netting plates and applied the hot-fix crystals.

One swan lake tutu plate.

The basic technique and patterns for these tutu decorations are described in Claudia Folts book: "Finishing touches".
Next I worked on several items including a 1920's inspired wedding veil for my brother's wedding. I will write a separate post on that.
Next I worked on a large project of 20+ costumes for a dance recital. The theme of the performance was the parable of the sower and the seeds. The smallest children in the recital were to represent seeds being planted in the earth and then sprouting into beautiful flowers. My idea for the costumes were earth toned t-shirt, tights and tutus with petals that would drop down to "reveal" tulips, roses, sunflowers, daisies, clover and morning glories. The middle group of students were to be dancing princesses and the oldest dancers were to represent a gardener tending flowers (hyacinth and lavender).

fabric petals for 9 children's sprouting flower costumes

For the little children's costumes I ruffled large amounts of earth toned tulle, which I sewed to elastic waists, over which two rows of brown and colored petals were stitched. Ribbon loops were attached to the brown side of the petals, and when they were tied up with ribbon, the children looked like little brown seeds. Once the ribbons were untied, the petals dropped down to reveal their "true" colors.
For each of the dancing princesses I made flowered circlets with hand-made ribbon flowers on them, and tulle and ribbon streamers (the technique for this is also described in Claudia Folts' book, "Finishing touches").

Flowered "princess" headpiece with ribbon work flowers

For the dresses I drew out a new pattern combining elements from an old "Gunny Sachs" and "Daisy Kingdom" pattern. The dresses were made of pink, lavender and cornflower blue crepe with wide chiffon "princess" sleeves.

The beginnings of six "princess" dresses

Finished princess dress with headpiece

Lavender dress

Cornflower blue

For the oldest group of dancers, I made two Romantic length "petaled" tutus, with green tights, and top and for the gardener a yellow cotton and chiffon dress. The dancers representing the flowers had green velvet and ribbon work headbands, while the gardener wore a purchased straw hat. To reduce the fullness of the petaled tutus, I quilted the tulle along the hip line.

"Hyacinth" petaled tutu

"Lavender" petaled tutu

Green velvet and "lavender" ribbon work flowers

Finally I received an order for a custom made, gold metallic tutu. I loosely based the coloring and design on the Gold Fairy tutu I had made for a performance of Sleeping Beauty.  Key difference were that this tutu did not have as many layers of double hand pleating in it (three layers instead of 6), used some gold metallic mesh, a different type of enhanced sparkle net (purchased from Tutu.com) and a black basque instead of a gold basque. 

Gold mesh and gold enhanced sparkle nets

Original design + notes for the "Gold" fairy from Sleeping beauty

As for the original tutu, I did dye some of the tutu net and the pants a rich gold. I also, spray painted plastic tacks with gold metallic paint to hide them during tacking.

Bottom of tutu with hand-pleated god mesh and dyed to match panties.

The finished tutu looks very even and will be going out to the customer in the next day or two.

 

Completed gold tutu with black powernet basque

My plans for this summer are to work on custom leotards (I will post about this soon as I have started on the first 4 samples), go to Tutu.com's tutu school again (this time to learn men's costuming) and finally work on building some rental costumes for the fall.

It is not a dream: How to clean (ballet) costumes

 There was a time when people were afraid to wash: themselves, their homes, their clothing. As a result people well, ...stank. At some point in time we discovered that by washing our bodies, our clothing and our homes we not only smelt better, we prevented disease and clothing lasted longer.
In the ballet world there was (and sad to say still is) a superstition or false belief among some that washing is bad for costumes.
Incorrect cleaning could potentially damage a costume but not cleaning, well it is simply disgusting as dancers sweat, a lot. If an item of clothing is simply hung back into storage after wearing, it can accumulate mold and bacterial growth, besides the worst b.o. imaginable.
Can and should you clean costumes?
The simple answer is yes; the more complicated answer follows.
Besides general hygiene, cleaning a costume before it is returned to storage greatly increases the life expectancy of the costumes. Sweat, oils from the skin and other bodily secretions rot fabrics, especially natural fabrics (silk, rayon, cotton). Synthetics such as polyester, nylon and acetate will also deteriorate over time when not cleaned. This is more due to the bacteria and molds that grow and feed on the sweat and skin cells than the bodily fluids themselves.
A ballet tutu is largely made up of nylon net and the pants are either nylon/spandex or cotton bobbin-net. The basque (part at the waist) can be made from silk, cotton, cotton/rayon or nylon; again all washable. Bodices can be made of a wide range of fabrics, most of which can be washed but here it can get tricky. If the fabrics were not washed before being made into the bodice they could potentially run or shrink. Often spot cleaning or dry-cleaning can be used.
To clean a ballet costume first find out what it is made of. Next if possible remove any decorations. Often decorations are applied to a plate or overlay that is tacked to the tutu and the bodice.  Only Swarovski hot-fix crystals have a patented glue that is dry-cleanable.
For the tutu, soaping and then thoroughly rinsing the crotches with warm water is usually sufficient. A mild soap such as Orvus (OrvusWA paste, purchased at the tractor supply store) or hand soap such as Ivory works well. If needed (for blood, urine or other stains) you can make a paste or soak the crotch in a product such as Biz or Oxyclean. Rarely do you need to wash the whole tutu. If you do, soak in the bath tub or a small kiddy pool. Use a minimum of soap because the tutu net works as a huge bath scrubby and produces a lot of bubbles.
Always air dry costumes and if possible expose the items to sunlight for several hours. Just sunlight will kill both bacteria and mold if given enough time. The only down side of this is that (high doses of) U.V. light will over time break down synthetic fibers such as nylon, acetate and polyester.
For spot cleaning again Orvus or Quick and Brite work well. Quick and Brite is very good for wiping lipstick and other make-up stains off of tights and leotards.
For silk, adding a table spoon or two of distilled, white vinegar to the rinse water also helps to clean them.

Blue silk and lace peignoir from the 1930's, with original vintage buttons

I recently was given a large number of vintage items. All had been stored in a box in a basement and they smelled of mildew. I carefully hand washed every single item using Orvus soap, luke-warm or cold water and air + sun drying. Not only are they clean and no longer smell, their colors are brighter, the fabric is crisper and they will last for many more years.

A 1970's pants suit made of Indonesian Batik

Edwardian (1900's) black silk tulle with tambour style lace embroidery.

Cleaning ones costumes and Vintage items is simply protecting an investment of time and money.

Cinderella on stage

Here are a few photo's and video clips of how Ithaca Ballet's Cinderella appeared on stage at the dress rehearsal.

Cinderella dress rehearsal

Cinderella Fairy Godmother attendants

 Cinderella, Fairy Spring, Fairy Summer, Fairy Godmother, Fairy Autumn, Fairy Winter and Fairy attendants

Cinderella dress rehearsal, Fairy Autumn

 Cinderella, dress rehearsal, Fairy Winter

Cinderella dress rehearsal Fairy Spring

 Cinderella Fairy Summer

Video clips from Cinderella:

Giselle on stage

Giselle: Brent Whitney as Albrecht,  Nadia Drake as Myrtha
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

Here are photos (taken by Johann Studier) of Giselle on stage:
The role of Giselle was beautifully performed by Beth Mochizuki, curently a dancer with State Street Ballet in Santa Barbara California. Beth was a graceful Giselle and her mad scene was very well done. Her pointe work (which is very challenging in this role) was feather light yet strong.
Brent Whitney was exciting and masterful as Albrecht, Giselle's suitor. He filled the stage with his presence and his jumps were effortless.  Beth and Brent worked very well together and gave a top notch performance

Beth Mochizuki as Giselle, Brent Whitney as Albrecht
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

Nadia Drake, long time principle of the Ithaca Ballet, was exceptional in her role as Myrtha.  Nadia has wonderful stage presence in all her roles but seemed especially strong in this one. She was forceful and imposing as the Queen of the dead maidens, and woe to any man who came across her path! At the same time, when she was dancing her initial solo as Myrtha, it was possible to see who the woman she (Myrtha) might have been before she was jilted and died herself: soft, vulnerable and in love. Nadia's performance was memorable and very striking.

Giselle: Nadia Drake as Myrtha
(photo credit Johann Studier)

Ithaca Ballet Giselle: The Wilis, with "Furies" on left and right
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

The Wilis were performed by the Ithaca ballet's corp de ballet.  A good corps de ballet moves together uniformly, with arms, legs and heads moving as one. The dancers gave a very cohesive performance. It really was a shame that the performance was so poorly attended because to see something of this level and quality one would have had to travel to a much larger town.

Ithaca Ballet Giselle: Myrtha and her Wilis
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

How it all started: Giselle

How it all started: Giselle
People have asked me how I got started with costuming. Like most mother's my first tutus were made for E13 who started ballet at 5. As she moved up and began performing more, I volunteered back-stage and before I knew it I was making more and more elaborate items.
The first real ballet I ever was fully involved in was Giselle. Talk about jumping in the deep end with boots and all!
Giselle is the ballet's equivalent to Hamlet, the great Romantic ballet. It is also one of the so-called "white" ballets, because the dancers are for a large part dressed in ghostly white costumes.

Beth Mochizuki as Giselle, with Johann Studier as Hillarion

As with many ballet's of this era and genre, Giselle is the story of a beautiful, innocent peasant girl who lives near a forest. One day a young noble man (or prince) called Albrecht is out hunting with his buddies and meets Giselle. They fall in love, although it is not totally clear how honorable Albrecht's intentions are.
Giselle peasant suitor Hillarion, sees them, and fights with Albrecht but is sent away.
After Giselle and Albrecht have vowed their undying love for each other, Albrecht's fiance Bathilde, her father and the rest of the court come on the scene. Giselle realizes she has been duped, goes mad and either dances herself to death or commits suicide (this is a little murky).
The second act of the ballet takes place in the grave yard in the woods. Local legend says that girls who die before their wedding (or die by suicide) roam the earth at night, searching for men to take revenge on. Their queen, Myrtha, rules her maiden's called Willis and sends them after unsuspecting men who are foolish enough to go into the forest at night. Myrtha is also supposed to be a women duped by her lover and either a suicide, or someone who died of a broken heart (the Romantics truly beileve that people could die from their emotions).
Giselle's peasant suitor Hillarion makes the mistake of visiting her grave after the sun has gone down. Hillarion is discovered by Myrhta and her Willis and is made to dance till he dies. Albrecht too goes to visit Giselle's grave and would have met the same fate where it not for Giselle protecting him. He survives and at the breaking of the dawn, Giselle goes back into her grave never to be seen again.
For this ballet Scott Dolphin and I were responsible for the design and creation of all the "white" Romantic tutus: Giselle, Myrtha (the Queen of the Willis or dead girls) and the Willis.
Scott Dolphin (www.scottdolphinstudio.com) made lovely designs for the costumes using flesh colored powernet covered in white sparkle organza. He simulated vines on the bodices by sandwiching iron-on interfacing between the organza and powernet. The tutu's were three layers of smocking pleated bridal tulle in white, glimmer white and toast, sewn to a quilted basque of powernet and organza.

Cutting layers of white bridal illusion for top layers

Cutting six yards of toast colored tulle for middle layers

The middle, toast colored layer was six yards fabric, railroad cut (i.e. cut as one long piece). The other layers were cut as three or four pieces which were then sewn together.
Working with tulle is hard: it is slippery, gets statically charged easily and you cannot pin it or draw on it to cut it straight. To be able to smocking pleat it, it has to be rolled onto a special dowel and then fed into the pleater, which is cranked by hand. Scott can up with some very clever ways of dealing with these issues. He devised a method of taping the tulle onto a table using painters tape and later rolling the tulle around a metal layer so that it could be cut straight and dagged if necessary.
After the tulle was rolled, the rolls were taped again and then could be pleated.

Cut and hemmed layers of tulle ready for pleating

Rolling tulle in preparation for pleating

Rolled tulle, basques and beginnings of Romantic tutus

 I owned a smocking pleater and was going to be sewing up the tutus.  Carrie Lampman, a then high school student, wanted to learn how to make tutus so she volunteered to be my assistant. Carrie is extremely talented and learned the whole process very quickly. For this project I had two other volunteers who came and helped as well.
I measured up the dancers, then drew sixteen basque pattern and cut them out. Carrie, Lydia, Shushang and I sewed and quilted the basques.

Quilted flesh colored Powernet and white organza basques

Smocking pleated light gold tulle layer pinned to basque

Later the four of us took turn pleating, steaming and then sewing the tutus together. Shushang had never used a sewing machine before but she did great. The final assembly, was done by Carrie and myself. Scott created all the bodices and Myrtha's headpiece. I made also created two hats: one for Bathilde (Albrecht's fiance) and one for a lady in her retinue.

My assistant Carrie Lampman sewing a Giselle tutu

completed Willy tutu

Bathilde's headpiece was to simulate the elaborate hair taping that was common in the Italian Renaissance. I used bias cut strips of velvet in colors to match Bathilde's dress (hunter green, golden mustard yellow and burgundy red), which I braided into a 3/4 circlet. The back of the headpiece was a gold, jeweled snood. I embroidered the head piece with flower-shaped sequins and pearls.
The court ladies' hat was a flat-cap shaped black velvet hat with white ostrich plumes held onto the hat with an embellished pieces of hand crochet lace.
Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs of these two headpieces.
The show itself was extremely well but sadly it was not well attended making it unlikely that the ballet will stage it again. Photos of Giselle on stage will be in another post

The Sleeping beauty awakes: creating a new ballet

Johann Studier and Beth Mochizuki rehearse the Rose Adagio

For the 2010-2011 season, Ithaca Ballet, was to stage a full length Sleeping Beauty for the first time (see this article).
Sleeping Beauty is one of the more popular and challenging ballets, with several acts.
Staging  a ballet of this size requires a huge amount of work by the choreographer, artistic director, set designers, costume designers, costumers, stage crew and dancers.
Scott Dolphin (www.scottdolphinstudio.com) took charge of the shows overall costume design because he had the most experience and expertise in this area. He contacted Cornell's theater department and arranged the rental of several gorgeous costumes for the King, Queen and courtiers.

Count and Countess costume

I together with my assistant Carrie set to work making a very large number of new tutus (24), refurbishing some of the existing tutus (4) and Carrie sewed prince Florimund's coat from a design Scott made.

Sleeping Beauty Act 1 Waltz costume

The wardrobe mistress began collecting existing costumes and sewing new costumes for the Act 1 Waltz and new bodices for the vision scene.

The ballet begins with a prologue in which there are several solos for Fairies who come to give gifts at the Christening of the Princess Aurora. For most of these we used existing costumes. For Crystal Fountain fairy we used the Dew Drop bodice and a Raymonda tutu. Fairy of the Enchanted garden was dressed in the Sugar Plum fairy costume and Fairy of the Woodland Glade wore the a Nutcracker Waltz of the Flowers demi-solists costume.

 Sleeping beauty: refurbished Golden Vine, Crystal Fountain fairy, Enchanted garden Fairy, Woodland glade Fairy

For the Fairy of the Golden Vine, we used the Nutcracker's Ballerina doll tutu which I refurbished

 Old Golden Vine tutu before refurbishment, it also doubles as Nutcracker's ballerina doll tutu

 by adding several additional layers of hand dyed tutu net. I also added a double hand pleated top layer of green embroidered mirror organza decorated with hand-made golden leaf and vine appliques. This top layer was tacked on as a plate so that it could later be removed when the tutu needed to be used for Nutcracker.
I later created a matching bodice in mustard yellow velvet with a jacquard inset, with hand-made gold leaf vine appliques, green mirror organza leaves and a headpiece with several appliques and leaves sewn to horsehair braid.

Sleeping beauty: refurbished Fairy Goldenvine tutu with new bodice

An evil Fairy, Carabosse, appears with her retinue and curses the baby princess. The good Lilac fairy appears (with her six attendants) and changes the spell.

 Carabosse's dress was a dress created by my mother and then altered for the dancer.

Carabosse, the evil fairy, Ithaca ballet Sleeping beauty

Scott created the design for Carabosses's new dress, and the costumes for her attendants.

Scott also created a new bodice and plate and refurbished the head piece for the Lilac Fairy while I made a new Lilac fairy tutu and six new tutus for the attendants.

four of the six Lilac Fairy attendants tutus ready for tacking

sewing layers of hand dyed tutu net to pants

The attendants wore bodices made for Raymonda. Scott hand dyed the pants and many of the layers of netting lilac for me and I mixed tulle in rose pink, lilac and periwinkle to create the right shading of the tutus.

Lilac fairy tutu with a lilac attendant bodice

The bodice and basque were made of a lilac velveteen, six of the nine layers of the tutu were double hand pleated and the top layer was triple hand pleated.

Ithaca ballet Sleeping beauty: Lilac fairy (design Scott Dolphin) and two attendants, tutus by Hilary Sharp

During act 1 of the ballet, it is the princess Aurora's sixteenth birthday. There is a large birthday party with her parents, friends, courtiers, towns people and several suitors in attendance. It is also the day that Carabosse's spell was said to come true. The local peasants dance a flower waltz; Aurora's friends dance and the four suitors dance the famous Rose Adagio with Aurora. It is called the Rose adagio because each suitor hands her a rose.

Beth Mochizuki as Aurora in act 1 of Sleeping beauty

For this act, Scott created a beautiful silk velvet bodice for Aurora, a plate and a headpiece. I created a pink tutu with several shades of pink netting and tulle and a top layer of pink sparkle netting.
At the end of Act 1, Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle and everyone falls asleep. The Lilac fairy and her attendants come to put everyone to sleep and a huge wall of thorns grows up.
One hundred years later, Prince Florimund is in the forest hunting with his retinue. The Lilac fairy appears to him and shows him a vision of a beautiful sleeping princess, with whom he dances.

Scott Dolphin still sewing on the day of the performance

Ithaca ballet sleeping beauty, tutus by Hilary Sharp, photo by Johann Studier,

For this scene my assistant Carrie and I created 12 Romantic length, Williamsburg blue tutus which were worn as over skirts over the old snow tutus. The wardrobe mistress created 12 bodices. On the day of the performance, we also made 12 small headpieces for the dancers by ironing Wonder-under (tm) onto some metallic flower fabric and sewing/gluing ribbon to this with silver fabrics flowers and Swarovski crystals on to them.
My assistant Carrie Lampman created prince Florimund's velvet hunting vest after a scetch and pattern made by Scott.

Brent Whitney as Prince Florimund, coat design Scott Dolphin, made by Carrie Lampman

 After Prince Florimund see the sleeping Aurora, he awakens her with a kiss.
The final act of the ballet is often called Aurora's wedding is is sometimes performed as a short ballet.
During the wedding scene, many story book characters come to visit including the White Cat and Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, along with Jewels (Diamond, Silver, Gold and Sapphire) and Princess Florine and her Bluebird.
For Act three,  I: 1) refurbished the Red Riding Hood tutu with a new top layer

 Red Riding hood before refurbishment

Refurbished Red Riding Hood tutu

2) made new tutus for three of the jewels: Diamond, Silver and Gold and refurbished the Sapphire with a new top layer. All the new tutus had 5 layers of double hand-pleated, hand dyed tutu net or a mixture of tulle. The Diamond tutu had layers of pale blue tulle added in and had a sparkle tulle top layer. The Silver tutu was graded shades of platinum, silver, and graphite glimmer tulle, hand-dyed deep pearl grey pants and lower layers of tutu net and had a double hand pleated top layer of black glimmer tulle and silver sparkle tulle. The Gold tutu was graded shades of antique gold, lemon yellow, and gold tulle, hand dyed layers of golden yellow tutu net and a double hand pleated top layer of gold sparkle netting. The top plate-like layer on the Sapphire tutu consisted of two layers of double hand-pleated  silver sparkle tulle, royal blue, Williamsburg blue and jewel blue tulle.

 Sleeping Beauty Act 3: New Diamond, Silver and Gold tutu and a refurbished Sapphire tutu, tutus by Hilary Sharp

3) Re-beaded the Blue bird's jacket and refurbished Princess Florine's bodice and tutu by rebeading the decorations and adding several layers of fresh tutu net and a double hand pleated plate style top-layer of Royal blue, Williamsburg blue and jewel toned tulle. The dancer added feathers, made a new feather headpiece and arm bands herself.

re-beaded Princess Florine bodice

refurbished Florine tutu

Sleeping beauty: Refurbished Blue bird and Princess Florine, Aurora's wedding Act 3

Scott made a new bodice and plate for the White Cat and we used our new Dew Drop tutu. Scott made Puss in Boots new breeches, I knitted the tail out of rust colored fun fur and Scott ordered all the masks. Finally Scot and I made new costumes for Prince Florimund and Aurora. Scott designed and created Prince Florimund's coat, Aurora's bodice and plate. I created the tutu. It was completed double hand pleated white tutu net, with pale pink tulle "sandwich" layers with an off white velvet basque and bodice. The lace on the bodice and the plate was a re-embroidered bridal lace with Swarovski crystals and pearls with additional hot-fix crystals added on.

Ithaca ballet sleeping beauty: Aurora Act 3 bodice
design by Scott Dolpin

sleeping beauty: Aurora act 3 (Aurora's wedding) tutu

The tiara was purchased.
The production as a whole was simply stunning and a testament to what a small (town) ballet company can achieve when it puts all its talented people to work together. Something of this size cannot be done by one or two people but has to be a true team effort, with everyone contributing.

Sleeping beauty: Beth Mochizuki as Aurora, Brent Whitney as Prince Florimund