My Design Process as a Costumista for 'Nine': 21st March - 7th April

Costume design process for 'Nine'

This week I worked my socks off to ensure that the costumes would be ready for the show.

I understand the usual procedure for a costume designer would be to draw up costume designs and pass them on for other people to resource and create. As I would be resourcing the clothes and creating the costume myself I skipped this step due to being on a short time scale. I had 3 weeks to resource, fit, and create costumes.. and the cast wasn't small. I felt that I could use my time more wisely by noting down the costume ideas. I understand that this would not usually be possible in the industry, not only because people would need to see your ideas to visualise them, but because I doubt that the director would trust the designer enough to be able to let them go ahead without seeing anything. Luckily my boss had enough trust in me to let me run with my ideas.

Main characters:

Guido: Two suits- one plain and one plaid, one pair of stylish Italian sunglasses

Guido’s wife: Classy 60’s dress, casual but elegant. Monochrome colours. Long coat and stylish Italian sunglasses

Carla (mistress): Seductive and sexy babydoll/chemise for ‘A  call from the Vatican’, red dress & leopard print coat for second change

Saraghina (lead gypsy): Big bustier to show off her amazing assets and reflect the ‘volumptious’ character from the skirt. Fur, red and black colours. Fishnet tights. Skirt created from layers of material and scarves. Large gold hoop earrings, heavy gold jewellery

Claudia (muse): Long dress almost like that of a ball gown. Very high-profile actress

Guido’s mother: Modest clothing, long skirt and a top with an apron over the top

La Fleur (producer): Black blazer and black trousers with a sexy corset peeking out from underneath. Hot red feather boas to finalise folies’-bergere extravagant appearance.

For the overture scene (the opening of the show) I wanted all of the girls in the cast (the main characters & the 4 chorus members) dressed mostly in monochrome shades with sequins and sparkles. This would represent the dream-like state Guido is in, with all the women around him who are singing a very mesmerising ‘la la la la’ song.

The chorus members would then have two changes to follow and these would be as follows:

Folies Bergere: More sequins. Shades of pink, red, blue, purple. Think super sexy, small underwear, corsets, high heels and most important fabulous head dresses. Feathers and sparkles.

Gypsy Whores: Corsets layered up with large skirts that were somehow hideous yet sexy. A dark kind of clothing shades of greens, purples and deep reds. Fishnet stockings, scarves to build layers.

Once I had thought about what I was after I took a trip to the market and began rummaging through all the 50 cent and 1 euro stalls. Our budget was tight so these were the only stalls I would be buying from. I managed to haggle a couple of things I found for 2 euro down to my 1 euro a piece budget. Here are some of the pieces I nabbed on my first trip.

One size sequin boob tube 1€  --  Size 8/10 black cami 0.50€  --  Size 14/16 White bustier 1€

Red curtain material 0.50€    --   Size 10/12 black corset 1€    --    Red stretch cami 0.50€     --   Black silk skirt 0.50€

As I was buying from the market there was A LOT of the things that did not actually have labels in them. On my first trip (as I know the cast pretty well) I visualised the students with the clothing and thought about if they would fit. I understand this is not the most professional way of doing things however when I returned home and measured them against size charts – my predictions were really almost spot on. I then had the idea of taking a tape measure with me next time however it is good to know should I ever be without a tape measure I can fairly accurately estimate clothes sizes.

I judged the pieces not only by the size but also by the material and how much stretch there was to allow for manoeuvre.

I took these photos into show my boss after my trip to market to receive conformation that she was happy with the direction I was heading. She was happy and she was even more happy with the prices I had paid for these items.

Total spent so far: 4.50€

Before I made any more purchases I wanted to gather whatever I could use from the costume closet. I went over to Gaby’s and rummaged through masses of clothing. I pulled out everything I thought might come in handy and brought it back to my house.

I had a selection of clothing however I did not have enough pieces that I could try on the girls of even make full outfits with. I wrote down all that I had and assigned them for each member of the cast. For example if I knew I had a top that would fit the muse for the overture (a size 14) this meant I needed to find a size 14 bottom half to match that top. I wrote out all the things I would need and took another trip to the market. It was harder than expected finding large skirts with elasticated waist bands and I needed something that was versatile in size. To solve this problem I bought a number of scarves (actually very good quality scarves at a very good discounted rate after a bit of bartering) and I would fashion those as skirts.

That evening after my shop I began playing around with some outfit combinations on my bed. I would have tried them on myself (or a mannequin), but all these clothes were really varied in size so that would not have been possible. Instead, I envisioned outfits and arranged appointments with the cast to try on what I had come up with. Some were yet without bottoms but once I had allocated pieces to certain people that would give me a base to continue shopping and find something that would complement it.

Overture costumes

In fashion design, unless you are working with plus sizes it is rare that you work clothing for bigger girls. I know in my previous experience if ever people design things they design them to look good on small sizes (8/10). This meant that this was much more of a challenge. We had a huge mixture of sizes – the smallest being a size UK6 and the largest a UK20. Again, I bore in mind when shopping - I had to consider what the girls would be comfortable in – they are students after all, not practised actors. 

Folies Begere costumes

Once I had done this I took the outfits in for the girls to try on and see what worked and what didn't. It was also a good opportunity to see how the clothes fitted the girls. 

Some needed progress but were a good start... some worked..   but some needed work..

For a final time and I went back to the costume closet and resourced everything I could, plus a few cheeky extras from the market. Some outfits I tried various combinations to see what looked right.

One of the chorus members, Maria, trying on various Gypsy Whore costumes

Next stage was Folies Bergere. I had most of the costume but now I needed the headdresses. I did my research and looked at the styles they use, some of the shapes they create and tried to figure out how the hell you can support something like that on your head. That was going to be the tricky part. I had some ideas. I could use headbands to support the base and create a sturdy curved platform in the centre to use as the base for my construction. With a 20 euro budget for four head pieces, I took to the shops.

I first came across some mini bowler hats with black netting all over and adorned with sparkles and feathers. As it was a shop – my bartering skills could only work so far. I was offered four for a discounted price of 17 euro (they were originally 5 euro each). Knowing this would only leave me with 3 euro to spare, I looked for an alternative. 

I managed to find a smaller equivalent of the hats without the feathers and netting… for 1 euro each. Bargain. Here is what I managed to find- excuse the photo from eBay, I didn't take one myself beforehand.

Using these as a base I bought feathers separately, along with some fabric and managed to create the 5 euro hats for a much lower price of around 1.50 each. Perfect. Then they needed height and extravagance. 

Backstage I had found the most bizzare bright green water fountain plant type thing (sorry I really don’t know how better to describe it than that!). I had a vision it would create a most amazing headpiece so with that in mind for one of the hats I decided to go for three other similar plant decorative items to make the others. The colours would never work and they would look incredibly cheap so I used 5 euro from my budget to buy a fantastic chrome spray paint. (only then did I realise how fun spray painting is)

Spray painting is incredibly fun

My favourite of all the slightly ridiculous things was the windmill. The flower on the far left was originally one of those things you stand in your garden so that when the wind blows it flies around.

Tea and fag on hand for intense working

Now I had my biggest challenge… making these wearable. Not only wearable – danceable..

The first one I began making I used the lighter bits I had brought. I thought that this would allow me to start with something easier and learn more efficient ways of balancing. Here is one mid progress. I know, another awful photo. I WILL learn to record things properly.

Me giving the headdress a test-run

Once I had my first piece I fixed two extra flaps coming from the bowler hat to create more balance on the head. It was similar to a head band but made from stiffened fabric. This was so you could slide hair clips onto it and hold onto the head better. I designed them so that the clips would be facing the other way to the crocodile clips already fixed underneath the hat. 

Hat design to keep them on the head