Wicked the Musical
presented by Murray Bridge Players and Singers 2019
In May 2019 my local theatre group put on an amateur production of Wicked.
The company's 57th major production since 1973.
As the costume designer I designed and made a variety of outfits for different characters.
Elphaba
Photo by Jay Birdy
This is Elphaba's act II dress. Her character has become the wicked witch of the west and her costume had to reflect her change.
I based my design on the popular broadway production version.
Designs made on Prêt-à -Template
Photo by Jay Birdy
Design
For this iconic costume I looked at lots of pictures of the original dress and other peoples cosplay and theatre versions.
I wanted to retain the layers of colour in the skirt and bodice but change the textures. I also wanted a different bodice and sleeves.
Foundation
I used a sleeveless round neck black fitted dress with a flaired mermaid hemline that I bought second hand for $12. It was in a heavy weight mechanical stretch fabric with a stretch lining. Not having to make a dress from scratch saved a lot of time and money.
Adding colour
I have been working as a seamstress for over 12 years and I have hemmed a lot of dress/skirts in that time. Of course I saved all the hems I cut off.... just in case I wanted to use all the different colours, patterns and textures together on one garment. Finally I had a reason to use them.
To layer the ruffles I started at the bottom of the dress using the wider hem ruffles and layered them up the body, gradually decreasing the widths as I went. Lots of overlapping created fullness and movement.
The original theatre dress had curved fabric strips layered from the hem line up the bodice. I wanted to recreate the layered look of colours but in a different format.
I ripped up strips of a wide variety of fabrics in different widths and wove them on the diagonal across the bodice of the dress. Each strip was pinned and then sewn down on both edges to secure it in place.
This created its own texture and pattern for the bodice.
At this stage I didn’t actually have an actor to put the dress on, just an idea of what body shape the directors had in mind for the character. Once the cast was picked I would have a 3 month deadline to make many costumes so I took the chance that the person cast in the roll would fit in the dress!
Fitting
In the first fitting I had a problem. The dress fit the actor fine but she needed to kneel down on one knee. Because the dress was quite fitted to the mid thigh she couldn’t do that. So I ended up cutting down each side seam of the dress from the waist through all the layers of ruffles to add in two godets. This gave the dress a weird shape and looked like it had two wings protruding out from each side. I solved this by sewing ruffles onto the inserts and blending them into the existing fabric as best I could.
After adding some pleats in the front and back around the hip the shape of the skirt smoothed out.
The dress was falling off the actors shoulder so I fixed this by cutting diagonally into the front neckline, as though I was creating a bust dart. Instead of folding and sewing a normal dart I overlapped the raw edges to shape the neck and bring the shoulders in. I did this in the back as well. I then topstitched the new darts closed.
A big problem with fitted sleeves in costumes is range of motion. The actor needs to have freedom to move their arms around without changing the line or fit of the garment. It can’t ride up all the time and have to be pulled back into place.
To solve this I bought a second hand black unlined stretch jacket. I cut the sleeves out of the jacket by cutting around the armholes about 4” into the body away from the armhole seams.
After adding the appliqué lace and hand made feathers to each sleeve I sewed the new sleeve into the armholes of the dress. By stitching about 2” away from the actual armhole it looked like the sleeves were not part of the dress but a seperate garment worn underneath. The stretch fabric had the give in it to allow the actor movement she needed.
Sleeves Embellishments
I used a sleeveless round neck black fitted dress with a flaired mermaid hemline that I bought second hand for $12. It was in a heavy weight mechanical stretch fabric with a stretch lining. Not having to make a dress from scratch saved a lot of time and money.
Adding colour
I have been working as a seamstress for over 12 years and I have hemmed a lot of dress/skirts in that time. Of course I saved all the hems I cut off.... just in case I wanted to use all the different colours, patterns and textures together on one garment. Finally I had a reason to use them.
To layer the ruffles I started at the bottom of the dress using the wider hem ruffles and layered them up the body, gradually decreasing the widths as I went. Lots of overlapping created fullness and movement.
The original theatre dress had curved fabric strips layered from the hem line up the bodice. I wanted to recreate the layered look of colours but in a different format.
I ripped up strips of a wide variety of fabrics in different widths and wove them on the diagonal across the bodice of the dress. Each strip was pinned and then sewn down on both edges to secure it in place.
This created its own texture and pattern for the bodice.
Weaving
front
back
Front and back opened flat for stitching
stitched
At this stage I didn’t actually have an actor to put the dress on, just an idea of what body shape the directors had in mind for the character. Once the cast was picked I would have a 3 month deadline to make many costumes so I took the chance that the person cast in the roll would fit in the dress!
Fitting
In the first fitting I had a problem. The dress fit the actor fine but she needed to kneel down on one knee. Because the dress was quite fitted to the mid thigh she couldn’t do that. So I ended up cutting down each side seam of the dress from the waist through all the layers of ruffles to add in two godets. This gave the dress a weird shape and looked like it had two wings protruding out from each side. I solved this by sewing ruffles onto the inserts and blending them into the existing fabric as best I could.
After adding some pleats in the front and back around the hip the shape of the skirt smoothed out.
The dress was falling off the actors shoulder so I fixed this by cutting diagonally into the front neckline, as though I was creating a bust dart. Instead of folding and sewing a normal dart I overlapped the raw edges to shape the neck and bring the shoulders in. I did this in the back as well. I then topstitched the new darts closed.
A big problem with fitted sleeves in costumes is range of motion. The actor needs to have freedom to move their arms around without changing the line or fit of the garment. It can’t ride up all the time and have to be pulled back into place.
To solve this I bought a second hand black unlined stretch jacket. I cut the sleeves out of the jacket by cutting around the armholes about 4” into the body away from the armhole seams.
After adding the appliqué lace and hand made feathers to each sleeve I sewed the new sleeve into the armholes of the dress. By stitching about 2” away from the actual armhole it looked like the sleeves were not part of the dress but a seperate garment worn underneath. The stretch fabric had the give in it to allow the actor movement she needed.
Sleeves Embellishments
I was inspired by Jean-Louis Sabaji feather dress from his spring 2018 collection, I designed my own feathers and used them on the upper and lower part of the centre sleeve.
The feather are made from a felt backed vinyl like fabric. It has a crosshatch texture pattern that catches the light. I cut out 5 different sizes of feathers from this fabric.
In silver metallic thread I freehand machine embroidered the veins and shape onto the fabric. Then I sewed around each father with a thicker thread in the bobbin case to make an outline.
To support each feather I used some horsehair fabric folded over 3 times and wrapped in black fabric. I sewed this onto the centre of each feather like a spine.
Cuffs
When I cut the feather shape out i was left with a lot of long triangles slivers of vinyl. I made these into a fringe by sewing them onto a strip of tailors interfacing. I wanted the witches hands to be extended and have pointy gnarled appearance.
Embellishment
Having reshaped the neckline and skirt I was ready to add the final embellishments.
The director felt the bodice was to bright and needed toning down to suit the character better. To dull the tones on the body I used some fine embroidered black net lace. I pinned it to the dress and topstitched it in place. The colours were still visible, especially under direct spotlight.
I hand pleated some black net using a special Pleat Maker Tool and then shaped a collar to cover the openness of the neckline. I carried the pleated net down the body for texture.
front
back
Beaded lace
I bought a couple of lace cocktail dresses secondhand and cut them up for the motifs. A friend beaded 5 flowers motifs for me to feature on the sleeves and bodice.
I also added lace flowers to the top of the flair in the skirt.
Conclusion
Things I learned.
In hindsight I made the dress far to heavy and thick. I should have used a light weight breathable fabric as the base for all the embellishments to go onto.
Pleating tool from Punch with Judy www.punchwithjudy.com.au
Photos form performance by Jay Birdy