The Shape Of It (Part 4) (Patreon)

As you read this morning’s instalment, I’m currently in my fourth rehearsal of the week with Roberto Campanella, at Artists’ Play in Toronto. This rehearsal will conclude in three hours, at which point I will rush home, shove a protein shake in my face, sprint through the shower, throw my show heels in my backpack with this laptop, and head off to the train station. Why?

Well, all those beautiful costume drawings (har har) you were looking at yesterday have become a reality. In the midst of my many layers of production stress, I knew in a distant, far-off sort of way that it was highly likely I’d need to go back to Montreal at least once in the midst of all this maniacal creation (to pick up the finished costume, if nothing else). I was foolishly hoping that the magic being made in Montreal would somehow not require me to do a fitting; and in the midst of my foolishness last weekend I received an email from Michael: Could you come to Montreal on Thursday or Friday for a fitting?

Sigh.
My brain had a small meltdown: Crap. Montreal. AGH. Right.
And then I made myself stop freaking out and bought a train ticket.


To keep you entertained while I engage in interprovincial travel...
Do you have any idea how bleeding expensive ostrich feathers are? They’ll bankrupt you.   Allow me to usher you in to the world of burlesque-adjacent awareness I now find myself in.

Barbette’s costumes are said to have totalled around $3500 in 1920s dollars – which comes out to about $40,000 today, if you’re wondering.

You can buy about 100 24” ostrich feathers for $26 on Etsy.

Or you can buy about 200 12” ostrich feathers for $87 on Amazon.

If you’re thinking to yourself, Aw Ess, that’s not so bad, right?

WRONG.

Check out this little video where they count the number of feathers in a 4 foot boa.
Spoiler: it’s 784 feathers.

Keep in mind that there are also different weights of feather boas – the one in that video is a pretty simple turkey feather boa. Barbette’s original ostrich feather skirt is a giant circle skirt of long, trailing boas – and more than one layer, from the thickness/look of it. Without boring us all to death with the calculations, once you factor in the impressive showgirl headpieces that topped off the look (more ostrich feathers), I’m not convinced that it would cost much different today to make a true replica of that first fantastic walk-out costume that she’s wearing in Man Ray’s photo.

Solution time.

For the outermost costume – the showgirl extravaganza – I needed to strike a balance between creating that first impression needed to start the act off with a BANG!, paying tribute visually to Barbette’s original aesthetic, and not making bad financial decisions that would see me sitting around eating instant ramen for the next 5 years to pay for an absolutely ridiculous ostrich feather skirt for an act that doesn’t exist yet for a contract that I don’t have any guarantee of landing yet.

Luckily for me, Michael Slack had an answer to this particular fabulous dilemma.

Ombré feathering, he called it. In essence, we’ll try to construct the skirt from a combination of silk organza and layer in feathers denser near the waist, decreasing as we get closer to the ground. The effect will be something akin to a feather fan that burlesque performers use, along with the high glamour that only a ridiculous amount of feathers can add. It’s still going to be ridiculously expensive. The goal here is to mitigate the ‘ridiculous’ part of that last sentence. Cross your fingers for me.

Attached below I've shared today the .PDF  drawing & notes Michael sent back to me based on the scribbles that I shared with you folks yesterday. I was please to discover that I'm not the only one who has a hard time drawing feathers (hehehe).

His skirt design is slightly different from my drawings: in order to create that beautiful rounded skirt shape, we needed an understructure of steel hoops (old school, I know!). Therefore, the best way to get more feathers into the look, to stay true-ish to the original source photos of Barbette from the Man Ray series (and have them be functional in the act), was as a feather-fan appliqué. You can see the little plastic clam shells at the bottom of the .pdf that will attach to the waistband of the skirt with magnets. There's also a swatch of fabric sample in that .pdf that he tracked down to use for the main part of the skirt – darlings, we're talking fancy, hand-sewn feathers from Italyyyyy. Oh yeah.

CATEGORY IS: OPULENCEEEE.

I can't wait to see this costume!

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[to be continued]