Sketches in Design

This week has been a busy one, full of working, cooking, and costuming! I've been working on making a few dresses for the drama production of Harvey (February 23!). While making the costumes I've been reading a few books on the basics of costume design and execution. The Costume Designer's Handbook and The Costume Technician's Handbook  have been very helpful in learning the basics of costuming for theater. Both books are by Rosemary Ingham and Liz Covey and provide a very detailed overview of costumes, from how to identify fibers in fabric to how to draw proportionate figures. I have been applying much of the technical aspects this week, though I'm sure the design information will be useful when I start to research Bollywood costumes more in-depth. Sadly, I still await most of my resources regarding Bollywood costumes--many of the books are obscure and take a while to ship.

While I've been hunched over a sewing machine, I've also been looking at many notable costume designer's sketches for their shows. It is amazing to see the differences between designers in both the costume detail and the way they portray the costumes. One of my favorite things about costume design as opposed to fashion design is that costumes require a character. The character can be short, tall, fat, skinny, and half another half-dozen adjectives, all of which need to be portrayed in the sketch for the character's costume. Below are some designs by Desmond Heeley for Don Pasquale, which opened in New York in 1978. Heeley was educated in England and has two Tony awards for his costumes.