Better Lives Blogpost 3: Navigating through clothing reflection
I chose to study the ‘Navigation through clothing’ course, which centers around costume design for all types of performance (opera ,ballet ,theatre ,circus ,…). I was drawn into the course because Styling is about storytelling through clothes too. Creating a character’s costume is an opportunity for me to enhance the sense of design and storytelling.
We worked on the tale of ‘Hansel and Gretel’, I chose to design the Witch in an Opera context.
The opera context allows you to be very dramatic, maximalist. In opera, the stories are extraordinary, so the costumes needs to accentuate the idea of being in another world. During an internship, I saw from up close the reality of creating an opera. The audience is far from the stage, you have to create flamboyant costumes to makes them understand the storyline.
With the lectures’s help, I understood that you have to get into the characters headspace to make something accurate. You have to take the viewers’s perspective in consideration and create something easily understandable to the viewers’ eyes if you don’t want to loose the audience. You question yourself about the character to understand her appearance.
We visited the permanent costumes collection of the National Theater and saw them from up close. We saw the diverse body types and the uniqueness of the tailor made costumes.
In my research process, I found a thesis that discussed the psychology and the meaning that are included in the story and in the witch character: Platzerová,BC.K.(2014) Eating their own: Maternal Cannibalism in Hansel and Gretel. I based my creative process on it. I gained a deeper understanding of the tale’s impact. In my perception, ‘Hansel and Gretel’ is a story about women: their willpower and resourcefulness.
From Platzerová research,It is Gretel who becomes a heroine while taking the initiative and saving her brother, herself and her whole family. The children and their relationships with the female characters (step mother, the witch) are meaningful. It’s about them gaining maturity and independence from their parents: « Suddenly they know where to go and they do not fear of being lost and hungry again because they defeated the witch and are fully self-sufficient ».
I learned that traditional fairy tale have a lot of hidden messages and symbolism. Oral greed is one of the theme most exploited in the story because of their food deficiency.
The wealthy blind and mischievous cannibalistic witch needs to have impactful symbols in her costume. Her wealth is heavily displayed in my design. From the thesis, the witch represent gluttony through cannibalism, she is the temptation (her candy house) and represent the idea of listening to your savage impulses. She’s also a woman eating children, she literally repulse the idea of maternity by eating it. I designed a dress with an exaggerated round belly to represent this resentful idea of maternity and power, she is the personification of a bad mother.
This experience has been enlightening and enjoyable, Better Lives offered me a different way to understand the design process (sustainability, diversity and social responsibility ). It’s important to create with a consideration of the industry’s future and of the final outcome’s impact.
Reference: Platzerová,BC.K.(2014) Eating their own: Maternal Cannibalism in Hansel and Gretel.Diploma thesis.Masaryk University, Faculty of Education Department of English language and Literature.
Available at: https://is.muni.cz/th/hgnky/Eating_Their_Own__Maternal_Cannibalism_in_Hansel_and_Gretel_fp5vk.pdf