COSTUME/MILLINERY DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

Below, I've highlight some of my design and construction work. Included are galleries from a few full productions, partial productions, as well as pieces built on commission, one off items, and some fun things I've built over the years. Questions? Reach out using the contact link!

Marie Antoinette
​by David Adjmi

(wig/costume design) Adjmi's "Marie Antoinette" is a work of historical fiction. Though many of the events in the play actually occurred, "Marie Antoinette" is not a history play or a play about the French Revolution, rather it is about a fictionalized version of Marie the woman. Her life, her experiences, and her attempts to exert control over her own life and find a purpose within a system that denies her autonomy. 

For these designs, I relied heavily on anachronistic fabrics and accessories while using some traditional shapes and styles (incroyable collars, bum rolls, panniers, etc). For the people of France and Revolutionaries, while I included some traditional styling, I focused more on a modern, militaristic look.

(construction by Hawthorne Custom Sewing)

Gulliver's Travels
by Lowell Swortzell

(wig/costume design) This production of "Gulliver's Travels" took place on a very sparse stage. The set consisted of 4, 12 foot tall rolling ramps. Because of this, the request was that each land Gulliver visited had very different costume designs. These images are the Lilliputian costumes I designed and constructed for this production. The request was for anime in feudal Japan. I used traditional shapes and pieces and built them using modern patterns, colors, and accessories. 

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Elephant's Graveyard
by George Brant

This play has two very different worlds: the muddied world of 1910s Tennessee and the colorful world of Sparks Circus. For this production, I designed the costumes of the circus people which were then built by Hawthorne Custom Sewing.

For Sparks's tailcoat, I hand-beaded the design using hundreds of glass beads and trimmed it with metallic gimp trim.

Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe
by Johnathan Christenson

This fictionalized account of Edgar Allan Poe's life featured a score that required a dark, modern-Victorian design approach. I paired a lot of traditional, gothic looks with stripes, lace, leather, and corsetry. For this show, I focused on grays, blacks, whites, and reds. 

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Commissioned and freelance work