Costume Degree Year One

Including:

Book lists
Included here are links to books that were featured on the booklist I was sent before starting my degree. These include books about costume history, costume construction and costume design and illustration.
Sewing Kits
A sewing kit was a must! And a thimble was very important. Anyone caught without a thimble suffered a quick, smart rap to the knuckles. OK, so that's not true but we got a few harsh words. Because apparently there is this urban myth that your finger might go septic but I've actually sewn through my finger on the sewing machine a few times and I survived *touch wood*. But thimbles are fun. You can wear them all day and point at people and sing "indestructible finger"... not that I ever did that. I didn't go into constructing costumes in the end but I'm glad I took the time to learn that I wasn't very good at it!
Macbeth and the Medieval Period
I believe this was the first project we ever did on the course. One of our course tutors had painted some gorgeous costume designs for Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" and we had to get into teams and construct the costume together. I got the boots, hat and trousers. Oh yes, I am the accessory girl!
Volpone and the Renaissance and Jacobean Period
My costume designs for this project were diabolical which is a shame because the Renaissance and Jacobean era is one of my favourites for costume. I adore ruffs and corsetry but my designs for Volpone (an Elizabethan play where all the characters are based on different animals) totally sucked. You'll see how awful they are for yourself in a moment. One of my designs was so hysterically awful that I gave it away to a friend who it amused greatly.
The Servant of Two Masters and the Commedia Dell' Arte
In the first year we got to go to Venice during the carnival which was brilliant. Venice is so beautiful and it was exciting to run around snapping photos of masqued strangers. I still have three masks that I bought there which are pretty cool. The Commedia Dell' Arte is a traditional type of Venetian theatre with stock characters- it's basically where Punch or Punch and Judy came from, along with the harlequin and I believe that interminably pessimistic soul- the pierrot.
The Rover and the Restoration
Wow this was a pretty boring project. I think at this point I was totally sick of costume history. The Rover was fairly yawnsome at the time. Although looking through my sketchbook I quite like some of the costume history research I did. I think I made two pretty nice final costume designs for this project but of course, I can't find them now. I really wish I'd gotten back into textiles earlier on in my degree. It almost m,akes me cry now thinking about all the cool little samples I could have produced, instead of cutting up pieces of old curtains and thinking they would do for making the costumes!
The Sea King's Daughter
This project was an utter dream, A kids' fairytale, what better project could I have asked for. I was pleased with the samples i made for this. I wish I'd made more at the time. The costume designs you'll find on my Sadko lens (named after the main character) and in the Sea King's Daughter photo gallery aren't my original designs. The original ones were way too appalling to show and were destroyed shortly after they were returned to me after being marked. I think on one I actually glued seed beads onto the paper! How embarrassing!
Well, I was kinda in a rush. I had to get the designs in early because my bestest Rachel buddy and me had a date with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer convention - which reminds me, I should dig out the bodice I made for that to show you!