Saturday, October 29, 2005

Period Costumes

In addition to reflecting a historical period we portray in our dances, each dress reflects on the period of one's own life when we created the dress.

Victoria does a wonderful job of creating dresses to fit the person. Last year, early on, I had the idea of making a RagTime dress out of a sari. But when I met with her, I mentioned other ideas, not even mentioning that idea. She just responded with something to the effect of this other pattern would look great made from a sari. And that was exactly the idea and pattern I had been thinking of, but was not bold enough to state. Telepathy? A sixth sense?

This year, again early on, I had a concept of what I wanted, but not a good picture. How to weave a chi pao image into a 1930s evening gown. She drew a design that actually incorporated the elements I had been trying to put together, but couldn't picture by myself. One afternoon, I met her at Thai Silks to look at fabric. We tried to match fabric to the brocades that I had selected. After I saw her experiment with a different brocade, another brocade with that pattern in a different color caught my eye. She said that this was the one she had actually had in mind first when I told her my idea. A change from dragons or dragonflies. "Mint green" with lavender swans.

0 comments: