Nutcracker "Parent" gown, and feather Bird headpieces -- youth dance company -- 2018

These three projects were all for an original Christmas Nutcracker production with the youth dance company I was co-directing at the time.

Four characters were in need of some headpieces to match and enhance their costumes, and we couldn't find what we needed to purchase anything.

The other part of the project came along when I was needed to fill a Christmas Party Parent role after a dancer was no longer available, but the only costumes left in our stash were too large or too old and falling apart to use.  So a new one had to be made, and I was willing to absorb the cost and make and keep this one for my own collection, since Nutcracker-type shows come up all the time in the dance world.

   

The overall idea for the costume was based loosely on this TV show gown. I have not seen the show, but the gown concept was a great fit for the look of our show, and easily something I could accomplish in a fairly short timeframe.  Plus the general color scheme and style are already very lovely, and matched one solid dark burgundy fabric I had recently ordered for my stash.

I absolutely got design help from my lovely costume mentor, Karin Bugatti, whom I met through the Madrigal Banquets years ago.  We started roughly with a pattern, made fairly major adjustments, and calculated the amount for the ruffles, which had so much room for variation.

 I chose to go with less densely gathered ruffles, which not only saved on the accent fabric (which wasn’t cheap, of course), but also helped the ruffles lay in a nicer way along the skirt rather than sticking out from it, as the embroidered leaves and gathers made it stiffer than I would’ve liked already. But with a good steam/light ironing, they laid nicely in the end.

I’m definitely happy with the color combination; the dark burgundy, deep wine red, and rose red and gold in the embroidery.  Though I would possibly like to add more decoration to the bodice at least sometime in the future, as it’s fairly straightforward and unadorned for the rough period it’s aiming at.

The overall shape and style of the gown are very, very loosely Victorian, as ballet Nutcrackers have their own version of the looks of that era that we lean toward.  So historical accuracy is not the point here.  More like historical-shadowing.  Or what I like to call Historical-Fantasy: definitely not historical, but looks like it could have been with a little imagination.

The bodice has a simple Bertha collar, which might be nice to redo or to add to in the future, as I was running out of time initially.  Maybe it could be pleated horizontally, or decorated with tiny silk flowers or a dark, delicate trim to add detail and texture.

Here’s the skirt, with just one of the textured ruffle layers attached, and no bodice yet, at an early rehearsal. (in the center back of the photo)  Testing for length and skirt volume, and whether to add more or take away some ruffle.  I went essentially for the variation seen here, with very little alteration.

I couldn’t find a better finished picture at the moment…  But the completed ruffles and bodice can be seen a little here.  It turned out fairly well.  There are some things I’d do differently design and fit-wise if I had it to do over, but it worked very well on stage, over two crinolines for a moderately full skirt, and definitely worked with the pseudo-Victorian feel of the show.

It would be great to build a coordinating chemise to wear with the gown in the future.  This was just worn over a leotard, and a tank top to absorb sweat, with character heels for the show.

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The other pieces needed for the show were several bird-like headpieces for two sets of characters in Act II:

• the Peacock
• a Crow, and two Little Crows  

Headpieces for the Crow and Little Crows were easy to choose.  I found this lovely headpiece pretty quickly in my search, and liked how similar it looked to many classical ballet Swan headpieces.  A lot more bold and wing-like, but still very feminine and pretty.

I found long brown-grey feathers with dramatic white edges for the base, as I knew I wanted them to be very stiff wth no chance of breaking, and play to the black of the crow color, while having a little more depth and interest. 

The feathers were first arranged into fan shapes with the lengths getting gradually shorter, and I partially thread-wrapped, partially sewed through the quill portion of the feathers to keep them together. 

Then the fan-shape of the feathers was held open and hot glued together along one edge where each overlapped, taking care not to let the glue show through to the front, but thickly reinforcing and coating the back side of all the feathers with the glue, to avoid the "fluff" of the feathers pulling apart or loosing their perfect shape as they're worn.

   

I did the same with 2 sets of smaller feathers for the Little Crows, as they would have one instead of a full two-"wing" hairpiece.

After the base feathers were assembled on all of them, I used shorter, softer feathers (mostly duck feathers, I believe) with some deep blue and some green tints to them to add depth and color graduating down from the longer, stiffer feathers -- attempting to mimic the larger Crow's headpiece feather arrangement and color gradient in the smaller ones for the Little Crows as much as possible.

The smaller ones were mounted to alligator hair clips, and made for opposing sides, as the Little Crow dancers primarily stayed each on one side of the big Crow during their dance.

I took care to orient both "wings" on the big Crow's headpiece in slightly different angles, unlike the inspiration picture, so that both wingtips were visible no matter which way the dancer turned, which added to the dramatic, birdlike quality of the look.

The Crow's headpiece was mounted very securely with wire and glue to a metal headband with lots of loops to thread hairpins through, as well as two extra alligator clips pointing backwards to slide into her bun.  There was a good bit of wind friction on this one, due to the wing-like structure and stiffening from the hot glue, so I did everything I could to give it lots of places to secure to the dancer's head.

   

All three pieces turned out very nicely, and looked very sweet altogether.  Though I honestly think I could have made the Little Crows a bit bigger...but they did look sweet, being so small next to the bigger one on the Crow.

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For the peacock, I did a good bit of hunting before finding this inspiration I chose to go with.

I knew I wanted to make it a little taller and a good deal thicker, to balance out the gigantic tail piece on the Peacock costume, which totally would have overwhelmed the design above.

After messing around with different combinations of eye and sword peacock feathers, and adding a bunch of slightly green-tinted feathers to fill out the bottom, I came up with a design I liked, and scissor-curled some of the sword feathers a little extra to add to the drama.

    

This one was also added to a headband with lots of loops for hairpins to secure it, and all the feathers were reinforced along the quills with hot glue to give them a chance at surviving all the daner's turns.

I'm very happy with the effect of this one, especially in the way the peacock feathers acted as the dancer moved her head in twitchy, birdlike movements during the dance.  The height and one-sided look really upped the drama.

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