The Shape of It (Part 3) (Patreon)

While Marika and I were discussing latex costuming options, I was waiting for Michael Slack – a Montréal costume designer – to finish up a short summer vacation before diving into the ‘showgirl costume’ with me. The elaborately feathered 1920s showgirl is integral to setting up the initial illusion for this act. It’s also a unique costuming challenge

As I mentioned in one of last week’s posts, Michael has brought a woman named Marianne Thibeault on board to help with the 1920s showgirl outfit. Feathers are their own “thing” in the costuming world; Michael tapped Marianne to join the project because feathers happen to be one of her specialties.

I’m having my third ZOOM meeting with Michael this afternoon (Thursday August 5th, at the time of this writing) to discuss hard numbers for this costume. He’s gone back to Marianne with the drawings I made as an initial pitch concept and has been pricing out fabric and feather options; he’ll present me with a couple different ‘costing’ options for me to decide between and then we’ll be off to the races (and by ‘off to the races’, I mean he and Marianne will start constructing this monstrous costume piece and I will sit here in Toronto anxiously chewing my nails for it to be done and praying it looks as amazing as I think it will).

Here’s the rough drawings I cobbled together for our initial meetings:

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***fun note: in the first ZOOM meeting with Michael after sending him these drawings, we went over them and clarified certain details. One of them was the headpiece/hat.  "What's 'lots of verticality' to you?" he asked me. "Because this hat looks quite close to your head".  

It does?! I thought incredulously. "Well, Michael, honestly I just drew it that size because I ran out of room on the page. Barbette's was a lot higher in that source material photo we have."  

"Okay, so, like, 6 feet high?"  he said.

I nearly choked. "Well," I said, composing myself, "I still have to fit it in a suitcase to Europe, in theory. So let's have that guide our decision-making process."

"Gotcha".

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[ to be continued]