[13] Tournelle du Soleil: First Fitting (Patreon)

• 15 May 2023 • Day 1 at Cirque IHQ: First Fitting •

A long walk through more hallways that I know I’ll be getting lost in the second that I lose Karine as a guide. Through a hallway of posters, another cafeteria, into a new section of the Cirque HQ buildings that looks like it doubles as a warehouse and factory. The ceiling stretches up and away even higher than Studio AB, hallways and catwalks of the upper levels arranged around an open central corridor that’s so huge that they’ve hung an entire Wheel of Death as ceiling decoration in the midst of it.

We go up a couple flights of stairs and turn left into one of the many fabrication studios. This is the costume department – or, well, part of it.

The costume department is massive. There are multiple studios – long, well-lit rooms with table after table and machine after machine stretching far away to the left and right, staffed by small swarms of talented cutters and sewers and milliners and craftspeople. They’re drawing, slicing, pinning, tucking, gluing, ripping, riveting, sewing an endless array of materials into fantastical shapes: researching and creating new costumes, repairing old ones. This room is only one of many dedicated to the incredible things that Cirque du Soleil creates in-house for their events and shows all around the world.

I’m swept into a small side fitting room and find myself in a small scrum of costumers.

“I’ll come back and get you!” Karine says, and whisks herself away as quickly as we arrived. 

Everyone introduces themselves and then returns to the tasks they were working on before my arrival:

There's Anton, tall and slim with warm brown eyes and a sneaky smile tucked behind his dark beard. Dana is next to him: younger and serious with a slow, calm cadence to her voice as she points to different fabric swatches. Anton watches closely, the sleeve of his long, drapey sweater pushed up to his elbow as he chews on a ragged thumbnail, listening intently. And there's Geneviève, petite and smiling behind small rectangular glasses; her attentive eyes survey garments packed onto silver rolling racks, a fabric-marking pen tucked behind strands of shoulder-length blonde hair woven through with grey.

The room has floor to ceiling mirror on the far wall, behind two lengths of curtain that can be pulled across for privacy while changing. Spotlights are hung on either side of the room, and the wall nearest the door as well. Got to have good lighting while taking fitting photos.

The garment racks line two walls, bursting with every colour and texture imaginable: hot pinks, slippery silvers, glossy black, chains, swarovskis, crystals. There’s just enough space for 2 fold-out tables in the centre of the room, covered in large photocopies of the costume designs, sewing materials, fabric samples, and the like.

Anton pulls a strapless geometric dress off one of the racks lining the walls of the room.  "Let's start with the final look," he says.

Final look? There's more than one?

The bust and skirt splay out away from each other like spikes on a three-dimensional star. The material is stiff, triangular prisms made of a rainbow-hued silver that looks like the back of a CD-ROM. A dangerous disco ball. A Y2K morningstar. It’s incredible.

Anton pulls the changing curtain across to section off the far side of the room and I strip down to my underwear. He passes me the hanger with the dress. “The costume designer isn't here yet," he says to me. "She will arrive tomorrow.”

I step out, holding the fabric up over my torso roughly where I think it's supposed to sit. Anton zips me in. Dana and Genevieve descend, mouths full of safety pins and clothing markers.

A stitch ripper appears. Some of the spikes are sliced off and pinned back on at slightly different angles. Marks are made here and there with erasable markers. The costumers switch back and forth between French and English in their questions and directives. Eventually they seem satisfied and photos are taken.

"Next costume!" Anton says.

Genevieve picks up another hanger from one of the clothing racks at the back of the fitting room: a white dress made of white and cloudy-transparent vinyl, covered all over with tubes of various diameters that loop and spiral over the garment. “Your opening look,” she says with  a shy smile.

“There’s a headpiece that goes with this look that I’m finishing up today,” Dana says as I step into the dress. “It’s a ‘blind hood’. There’s mesh where the eyes are; you should be able to see through it. We just need to make sure the fit is good and the mesh for your vision is in the correct place.”

The pinning, tucking, ripping, photographing process repeats.

Tubes are severed and reattached in new places. The waist is pinned to be taken in. The hemline is marked to be chopped to a shorter length so it hits just above my knees in the front.

Once the team is satisfied, photos are taken again.

Dana hands a third garment to Genevieve from one of the racks at the back. I hear the word maillot used several times. My brain is giving itself a cramp trying to remember what that word means when Anton says–   

“You’re going to have to wear a nude g-string with this.”

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Your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil arrives tomorrow at 7am EST / 1pm CEST. Until then, stay strange and wonderful -- XO ess