Hello reader and happy pre-Christmas! This is my last post of the year 2024. I started this blog when I moved to my new-old studio last April, to mark a new chapter in my career. The last 16 years have been spent establishing my physical business in Manchester (UK) and now it has got to a point in which the ball is rolling almost by itself, so I wanted to document my work up to this point with this blog, as well as introduce you to my assorted and vivid working life, hoping to inspire and inform you, so thank you for reading.
This month's blog is seasonal, I want to tell you about a costume I created (with the help of other talented creatives) inspired by Jack Skellington, the main character of the 1993 animation film by Tim Burton "A Nightmare Before Christmas". Enjoy it!
I have made other costumes for my lovely customer Jade before, she works for the theatre as a lights technician and she does cosplay as a hobby, so she knows the crazy amount of work involved on making a costume to perfection, and I appreciate that. Jade wanted a suit this time, inspired by the artist Hannah Alexander's interpretation of Jack Skellington from "The Nightmare Before Christmas", she had her permission to get it made and she just asked if we mentioned it came from her artwork if we put it onto social media, so there you go Hannah, here is a link to your beautiful website too so everyone can see your beautiful designs: https://www.hannahalexanderartwork.com/ and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannah_alexander_artwork/tagged/
Here is the illustration made by Hannah Alexander of the costume:
The costume was made out of a few pieces: The coat, the shirt that goes underneath attached to the waistcoat, the trousers, the scarf and the belt. The coat was one of the main pieces and I made it out of a lovely wool coating striped material from Minerva Fabrics in the UK, then it was hand-painted by the local artist Cathrina Mur. Once the coat was made and painted I distressed it to make it look ragged and old at the bottom. Cathrina is also an sculptor and she handmade the bone buttons of the coat, check them out, they are all different and unique, what a genius idea to get her to make these for me, I could have never found them anywhere if I tried. Cathy, you rock! You can see some her work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathrina_costuming/
The coat was tricky to make because it had many layers, yoke upon yoke and lapel upon lapel, chains going from one of the yokes onto a different piece (shirt) and then the hood and all the hand painting and the decorations with ribbon and metal studs, and even velvet bias binding, but at the end I worked it out. Here is a picture of the calico mock-up that I made beforehand to test that the outfit fitted Jade, there you can appreciate the amount of layers and how they are arranged. Once it is made onto the actual fabric and has all the embellishments on is harder to tell what is going on!
Underneath the coat was a tailored creased cotton shirt I made with lovely fabrics from Minerva which, again, had some of the layers, so I made it with the front of the waistcoat attached to it, and that only shows on the front of the costume, but the back is just a cotton shirt, which is a lot more comfortable to wear considering how many layers the costume had. So she feels like she is just wearing a shirt underneath the coat, but it looks like she is wearing a shirt plus a waistcoat under the coat. The collar is pointy and had boning inside the edges to make it springy. The waistcoat is made out of a silver and black brocade fabric that has Christian relief motifs on, and I edged it with black velvet bias binding. Then it had a pocket watch, with no depth to it to avoid extra fabric layering, and with the pocket watch on a chain attached to it. Here it goes, please do not judge the state of it because I took the pictures whilst I was making it and before it was finished and ironed, therefore it is still creased, rough around the edges and with bits of thread hanging off everywhere! (If you haven't seen a half-made garment before, prepare for a shock, some customers panic when they see the garments at this stage and I have to assure them there is nothing wrong with the garments, they are only unfinished so the insides are hanging out).
The trousers were also made in the stripy wool coating fabric and were of slim-fit and super long.
On top of the coat, a belt (the only store-bought piece in here, folks!) was tightened over some fabric as per the illustration, and then a mini "piece of resistance", the scarf wrapped around her neck that has the feathers on the sides, which is probably my favourite piece in the outfit: the cat face brooch Cathrina sculpted. Well done Cathrina, your talent was well needed to make this costume amazing! I hope to get to work with you again soon.
And finally, a picture of the original character in Tim Burton's movie followed by a picture of the finished costume I made for Jade. I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Have a lovely Christmas (maybe a spooky one?) and cheers to the new year, looking forward to new projects and a wish to fill this world with more creativity and more fantasy. Thanks for reading, Silvia.
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