Weekly diary 03/10/14

Within this session we looked into costume industry, in the start of the lesson we were all given a fairy tale story and we had read through the story and pick out  a character from it. After picking out the character we had to design an illustration of a garments that would suit theatre or film production. The story that I was given is called 'Rumpelstiltskin'. 

This story is of a poor miller’s beautiful daughter who has been forced by her farther to spin straw of gold for the king, so he could have a higher rank in the community. However, she doesn’t know how to do it and with confusion she starts to cry. Then a little man appears in the same room as her, she explains her situation to him. The little feels pity for her and agrees to doing her job if she gives something in return. The miller’s daughter agrees to his offer and gives him her ring, the following morning the king is really pleased with her that he commands her to do another room full of straw. She starts to weep again and the same man appears and does her in exchange of her necklace, once she completes this room the king is so pleased with her work. That he gives her a third room full of straw and of she completes it he would marry her. This puts greed within the millers daughters heart to an extent that when she cries on the third day, she has nothing to offer the little man and promises her first child. She marries the king. Years later the first child is born and when the little man arrives to collect the child she disagrees and starts to cry. The man feels pity for her and asks her to guess his name within three days. She guesses his name on the third day and the little man becomes really angry with her that he stamps on the floor so hard that his half body sinks in the ground and he kills himself.  

For this story I wanted to produce a dress for the miller daughter and on the scene where she was poor. So then I reached the different types of dresses that would inspire me. I looked in to the 18th century art because the type of garments that they wore at that time included large quantity of fabric and also had gathers and palettes that would suit the types of garments within theatres and movie productions. I also looked into different types of high end clothing and also searched different types of modern jewellery like ring and necklaces so I could take inspiration from different designs and exaggerate the same look so it’s suitable for theatre. For the patterns of the dress I chose little pretty butterflies because it would show that’s she beautiful and delicate.

After I gathered all the information I presented it in a mood board and created design illustrations for the garment that I would use in theatre.