costume shop field trip

we were out of the apartment at 9 am this morning for a 10 o'clock tour of parsons-meares, a costume production shop at 519 eighth avenue and 36th street, just around the corner from the design studio morgana interviewed for meet me at the corner. our friend lori arranged the tour. she went to school in michigan with a friend who has been working for parsons-meares for a number of years now.

this is christian (and ms sally ann parsons is at her work table immediately beneath his hand). he began the tour in their fitting room, by showing us scrap-book samples of designs that they had put into production. they take the designers' drawings and research how the drawing can work for the actor or dancer or singer. they need to take into account how high the dancer will kick, how much they will perspire (several of the costumes required padding, and they needed to make sure the dancers can breathe in the thick material being used), what the cost will be, and where the materials can be found. sally ann parsons began the shop in 1980, and has constructed costumes for many broadway shows (cats, phantom of the opera, guys and dolls, kiss me kate), ballet companies (abt, nycb, ailey, feld), bette midler, tv and film productions, and barnum and bailey's circus. the shop did all the women's dresses for how to succeed in business, and the costumes for the spider men in spiderman. we saw all the pictures of the dresses for how to succeed, beginning with the actresses in street clothes, then the mock-ups for the actual costume, and then the costume itself. the spider costumes had a printed design on the chest and then were sewn together. christian also passed around a costume the rockettes wore for the recent production of their christmas show . . he showed how the costume evolved from it's original design to the costume in our hands.

after the fitting room, we moved into the production room. part of the room was working on costumes for the san francisco ballet company's performance of don quixote. the other half was working on the genie and ursula costume for disney's little mermaid . . to be performed in turkey!

janet and christian observing the layers of fabric on the tutus for don quixote. there is no wire in this tutu. it is comprised of many layers of gathered tulle tacked together. beautiful pink and orange ribbons were woven throughout. they were just lovely.

i believe this woman is discussing how she cut out the appliques and arranged them on the jacket for a don quixote costume. normally, the edging would be done with thread or embroidery floss. however, it frays very easily and since one cannot notice the minute details of the edging on stage, brown marker was used. the green pieces in the foreground are leaves for the lion king. we also saw the grass skirts for the lion king. they were beautifully woven.

who is this???? it's miss gelsey kirkland!!! chanda and i were excited to see her hanging on the wall at someone's work area. they must have made her fairy carabosse costume from her performance with ABT in june of 2007. (she staged the production along with her husband michael chernov and abt's director, kevin mckenzie. oh! how i wish i had seen her in that!)

after the production room, we moved into the dye room. this is a piece of the crab's costume from the little mermaid . . i think . . behind christian's hands you can see the material with the dye samples. it's all very intricate . . and i'll never give costumes on the stage such a cursory look again! i'll know to observe the different color tones, buttons, padding, shapes and sizing . . and how the costumes compare to the ones worn by the other dancers or actors.

for example, this is the different dye samples of the hyenas' costumes for disney's the lion king. they were all different tones of the same basic color. i never realized the differences in the costumes onstage. not knowingly . .

this is the young woman who works in the dye room. she explained how she sometimes makes a mistake with her math . . and the material may keep coming out dark . . until she checks her figures and realizes that 3x the proper amount of dye has been used . . and needs to be corrected. she also mentioned how different materials take dye in different ways and when she has trouble she will occasionally ask others in the shop who have been working there for many years, and have the experience to help her figure what dye is best for that particular material. she also speaks often with the people who make the dye (one of them is aljo, downtown, who we have been to when dyeing costumes for ellen's shows). she also mentioned how she has a new respect for rit dyes! they work well on everything! she used to work at macy's as a designer, but found that she never saw the designs come to fruition for it was outsourced to india. all she did was work on the computer all day. she decided she wanted a more "hands on" job . . and found the opening at parsons-meares. here's the job description i found for her position!

boxes of patterns and material samples . .

walking along an aisle of buttons and ribbon . . and bolts of fabric . .

just a few of their shows . .