Costume Design Projects | piper-v-ferguson

Midsummer Night's Dream

For Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, I wanted to play around with the juxtaposition of the exaggerated artificiality of the human court vs the organic sensuality of the fairy court. 1830's fashion provided an excellent format for the stilted court life that stifles the heroines. I drew inspiration from pictures of the english countryside and Alexander McQueen haute couture for the fairies as I wanted to give them silhouettes that provided a sense of camouflage yet stylish at the same time.

The Tempest

I decided to set Prospero and Miranda in 1450s clothing because I saw parallels between Prospero’s power struggle with his brother Antonio and the War of the Roses in England and I wanted to imply said parallels in Prospero’s garb. The Italian courtiers were then set in the 1630s because in the 14 years Prospero and Miranda spent in exile, I wanted it to appear that in those 14 years, there had been radical changes in Naples and Milan, thereby creating a sense of alienation from the audience's perspective. Also I wanted to highlight the pomp and affected appearance of the usurpers, so I exaggerated proportions to give a sense of ridiculousness.

Romeo and Juliet

For my first costume design final, I decided to set my designs in 1800-1810, the Empire Period, in Napoleonic France. The Empire style allowed freedom of movement for the men while emphasizing the delicateness of the female characters with a subtle harkening back to the Italian Renaissance in the placement of the waistlines. The tensions between the French and English in the early nineteenth century could easily be used for the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets, so consequently I designed the Montagues in English fashions with influences from the Duke of Wellington and the Capulets in French Napoleonic styles.