Due to financial constraints over the years, I tend to have many more designs than costumes, so some of the pictures here are just of designs. Also, some costumes have been recycled or passed on and these too are just shown with their design sketches. Please forgive the roughness of some of these drawings as they did not scan well and I've had to try and 'redo' them with my mouse [and left-handed]
Though I have loved playing 'dress-ups' for as long as I can remember, I didn't start designing and making costumes until I reached my mid/late teens. My first costumes included a 'poodle'[1] skirt and a cat-person[2/3]. I also started dabbling with designs for evening dresses. [4]
Instead of doing my 5th year of High school, I started technical college, working for a Diploma in Theatrical Arts [Costume Design]. Our first designs were for 'Aida' [5/6] but all that survives of the costume I made for that is the collar from the Aida costume. Next was 'The Pardoner's Tale' from Chauncer's 'Canterbury Tales'. My Squire's costume was one of two chosen for a display at the [then] newly re-furbished and re-opened 'His Majesty's Theatre' in Perth, W.A. After this was 'Royal Hunt of the Sun' from which I chose Fray Marcos de Nizza's costume to make. For sometime this became quite a popular costume for male friends to borrow, being fairly adaptable to male sizings. After 'Hunt' we were set a free choice 'multi-design'. I chose: Fantasy – Lion and Blue [a ballet based on a poem]; Science Fiction – The Ark of James Carlyle; Fairy Tale – Sleeping Beauty; and 'The Poet and the Women', an ancient Greek play. I selected the Violet Fairy from 'Sleeping Beauty' to make but only got as far as the headress and the skeletons for the [rather large] wings before I was forced to leave college [for financial reasons].
After that, and until I moved back east, my costuming was limited to designing, partly for my characters for the then newly-discovered role-playing. Once in Sydney, costuming became for role-playing canventions and the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras parties [particularly when they were held just down the road from where I lived.]
After Sydney, I moved to Canberra and there encountered the SCA [Society for Creative Anachronisms] and 'Smithfield' [a house hold within the SCA well known for its costume parties] |
