Friday, June 11, 2010

What I Did Today...

Sorry for being a bit MIA the last 2 days, but I am currently in production for the next show of the season at work, so I'm pretty busy. And when I get home from work, I'm often pretty exhausted. And the apartment is a disaster and really needs a deep cleaning (it's really embarrassing at this point), but I'm wiped out, so it's getting done little by little. For example, last night I was taking out the trash around midnight and on the way back from the dumpster, there were dozens of fire flies all over the place. Some people call them lightning bugs. They are so gorgeous the way they glow. I was absolutely mesmerized and I just stood there in the grass watching their lights glow. I remember being a little girl and visiting friends of the family up in a rural area of Maine. (Who am I trying to kid? ALL of Maine is rural!) Anyway, I remember the lightning bugs/fire flies were glowing bright orange. And last night down here in rural PA, they were glowing bright yellow. Does anyone know what makes the different colored lightning bugs? I suppose I could Google it, but it's late and I'm sleepy. How does this relate to this blog or the title of this particular post? Well, I spent most of today working on a costume that actually reminds me quite a bit of the lightning bugs:
Forgive the pins holding the sequin trim in place- it's not quite finished in the picture. And also forgive the messy fringe- I didn't smooth it all down perfectly before snapping the picture. Oops! Anyway, you may think this costume reminds me of the lightning bugs because it is literally neon, but that's not the only reason. In the show, it will be featured in a full black-light number, which I find pretty exciting. As you can see, the entire costume is covered in fringe, which reacts to the black light really well. There will be another dancer in a yellow version of the same costume- kind of like the two colors of fire flies- orange in Maine and yellow in Pennsylvania. And no, I did not choose those colors to copy the bugs, it is merely a coincidence that they are so similar.

I am not sure if I have mentioned it before, but I LOVE designing costumes for dancers. First of all, they have the most perfect bodies, so there are rarely limitations in terms of how form-fitting or revealing a costume can be. Second, their costumes are all about movement, so it's fun to come up with ways to make the costume move based on the choreography. Can you guess the type of dancing that will be done in this black light costume? In case you can't tell from the picture, the base underneath the pink fringe is white, so there will be a fun contrast in colors under the black light since white glows purple. I'm excited to see it all come together, but I have to wait a couple more weeks for that.

I'm sorry if this post wasn't very fashion-y, but please understand when I'm mounting a show, there's not much else I think about. In the meantime, if you have any questions about my work as a costume designer, clothing designer, seamstress or style consultant, leave a comment and I'll either answer it there, or if there are a lot of questions, I may do a Q&A post to answer them.

Have a great weekend!

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