L'Armoire de Barbette [II] (Patreon)

Hello my dear, strange, wonderful patrons – 

Picking up where we left off last time, I'd like to share what I wrote to my costume designer, Michael Slack, and the assistant designer, Hannah Fisher, for the remaining pieces of the Numéro Barbette costuming!

Michael asked me to send him a detailed email of what remains to be made for the project and any source material or inspiration photos relevant to the work. 

I also hacked together a Franken-video of bits and pieces of rehearsal footage (from the Atelier Barbette vlogs) and added little title cards showing where the costume removals and changes are happening, so that he can make sure that what he's dreaming and designing doesn't interfere with the technical movements I'm doing at any given point in the work. 

I drafted the following in a 2 hour blur one frosty night in an Airbnb on the Plateau in Mont-Royal. I'm excited to finally share some of the references with you! 

I've got Pinterest board upon Pinterest board that went into these distilled selections that I'm tempted to share as well ... maybe in the next post ;) 

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"WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE:

The BIG DRESS that we created for the first contortion version of the act is now the OPENING LOOK (please see video) in the aerial straps number (YAY)

Some small adjustments are needed to help make it work the best for aerial performance:

the snap on the waistband of the skirt cage should maybe be a side-squeeze buckle for longevity & ease of removal

the top of the dress (the light chiffon [?] material) should be shortened a tiny bit, as I'm not wearing any kind of bra padding in this version so currently it's bagging a bit

WHAT IS NEEDED:

Barbette Small Dress:
- {is revealed when the Big Dress comes off: art nouveau burlesque vibes; should be beautiful and a little revealing}

- {should allow for free movement of hips in big split positions & not flip over my head when I invert}

- {needs to be able to be removed with one hand: I'm imagining something similar in construction to how the Big Dress was made, where maybe I undo a simple string-tie on each shoulder and one at the waist so it just unwraps and it would pull / fall off?}

Barbette 'Lingerie'/Two-Piece:
- {again, art nouveau / burlesque vibes; aiming for revealing / sexy}

- {is revealed with Small Dress is untied and discarded; I'm only seen in this costume for maximum 30s, and I'm upside down and spinning from one ankle bleeding-fast for most of it -- something with tons of sparkle / crystal / tassel / bead fringe/ etc to accentuate that movement is what I'm leaning toward}

- {TOP MUST BE ABLE TO FULLY BE REMOVED so that I'm shirtless / topless}

- {If bottom half of this costume layer is sparkley/fringey, this also needs to be swiftly removable so that the plain final layer is visible for CRÉATURE / ESS }

Créature / Ess:
- {contemporary and simple: no more sparkle, feather, crystals, etc.)

- {revealed on the ground after the headpiece, top, and any sparkles/tassles on the bottom half of my body are removed -- the less movements required to do this, the better, burlesque-style, even if it's not presented 'cheeky' like a burlesque moment}

- {some kind of brief with a high waist, or a low waspie/corset type vibe}

- ***{we discussed once upon a time something like woven satin threads / inspiration from Jean Paul Gautier SS 2004 full-body corset type designs & chanel's ribbon--corset, and the straps and buckles of girdles to blend 19th century mens' and womens' undergarment designs -- Something that feels slightly anachronistic, maybe (*I'm open to this changing, if you think the design should be simpler, too)

- (+++) some kind of leg covering that doesn't clash with upper layers of costume (maybe i just buy those invincible stockings / tights)

INSPIRATION is going back and leaning heavily on evoking old, authentic images of Barbette and similar-era Folies showgirls as strongly as possible:

"Small Dress" Inspiration:

^^^^ Original Barbette inspo itself;

LOVE the Art Deco pattern; the tassel length creates interesting length but would be dangerous/impractical for this section of the aerial straps act UNLESS we did something like -- (1) they're still smaller / shorter, and (2) they're magnets and I pluck them off one at a time in the air as part of the choreo while I go up ? (fun!) (totally not necessary, just riffing)

The other theme we could lean into is pearls. Pearls everywhere.
Pearl everything. Dripping in pearls/crystals. (Like Mugler SS 1998, see below / Mugler's 2019 Met Gala dress). Would catch the light beautifully. Could be fun.

^^^^the giant feather skirt in the illustration above this one is obviously not right for this layer of costume, but the minimalism of the BACK in the image immediately above is interesting and possibly really helpful for us in terms of constructing something that comes off with a couple pulls of a couple strings

^^^^I know this Bob Mackie/Mitzi Gaynor dress is 1978 (i think?)/not the right era, but i LOVE the sparkle lines and the flow they create on the body, and I LOVE the feather tassels -- Feather tassels that long, and that many, on this layer of the costume would be impractical, but I wonder if we could incorporate something like it ...

Some other final / random things I've pulled that can help us in the Universe of "Small Dress":

--> If we wanted the lingerie layer underneath to be more fancy & sparkly, we could go with something super SHEER like this idea, add some small feather-trail / subtle crystal embellishment?

You had also had an idea back when we last spoke about the matador/bolero jackets and the EMBROIDERY on them -- you talked about weaving in imagery that was special to this story / to Barbette / etc. 

My mind has been going to queer-coded flower imagery/messages that used to be popular -- specifically, Oscar Wilde and green carnations. 

(I'm not opposed to colour in the costume; green is a good art nouveau-y palette; if you had other ideas about embroidery & imagery, I'd love to hear it) 

(ALSO, I'm capable [and willing] to teach myself / learn embroidery techniques to do this myself on a base dress construction, for time / money / skill reasons, if that helps us at all.

BARBETTE 'LINGERIE'/TWO-PIECE INSPIRATION:

^^^^ Barbette's original two-piece. I imagine the vertical strap from the bra to the bottoms was to keep it from flipping around when she did trapeze work; there's some super grainy footage of her from the 1930s doing her trapeze act in a costume like this, or maybe this one. Could be helpful for us?

I'm imagining this layer going one of two ways: (a) Similarly to suggestion above, this could be pearls/crystals/drippy (Mugler SS 1998 / Mugler's 2019 Met Gala dress), to catch the light beautifully & add movement?l or (b) going FULL/HARD classic burlesque with beaded fringe layers (see below)

CRÉATURE / ESS / FINAL LOOK:

^^^^Original / Main Inspo (Barbette): SHIRTLESS;
Something higher on the waist than what Barbette is wearing here (more flattering; nice for some of the tricks I'm doing to have my hips bones and lower stomach covered); garters & stockings are super cool but I dont know if this can be practically made for a circus costume...?

And then the girdle-y strappy buckly bottom type things we were looking at before (orig. idea: blending 19th c. mens' and women's undergarments; strappy ideas being taken to extremes in the Gauthier & Chanel examples) were kinda in this vein:

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Stay tuned for your next update

And of course, stay strange and wonderful :)
XO Ess