We all know
costuming events have been a desert out there for the past two years. And I’d
guess that most of us are still in a costume sewing slump too. I’ve continued with
my “baby steps” sewing my costumes, or a better description, “bits & pieces”.
Right now, I have four different dresses in various stages of construction that
get worked on when the mood or energy strikes me, which is mostly about a day.
A while back
I had recognized that this was becoming a pattern with me; I’d go full-on
enthusiasm to start a new dress, and after a short time it would fizzle away.
And then another dress would be started, and same thing would happen. I’d put
it aside as I had nowhere to wear it so what’s the rush? But eventually one of
them would get done, or at least closer to being done. I decided that if this
was how I worked, so be it. Don’t fight it. When an event comes up for it, you
can be that mad crazy lady again.
Towards the
end of the year, things began to loosen up from (need I say it?) Covid
isolation, and a few events cautiously started up. There was a dim light in the
tunnel, inviting us to come out again. There was hope.
In
September, I had helped my mom move into a retirement community and noticed
they had a beautiful indoor dinner theatre with a stage, great lighting, and lots
of seating.
It reminded
me that a few years ago I’d seriously begun to plan on offering historical
fashion shows to retirement communities, and had even participated in two that
my friend, Cindy, put on. Today I had a Memory pop up on Facebook that showed I
was already thinking about this 9 years ago, in 2012. A few years ago, there was
a really nice location down the street from where I lived. But then we moved
away. And now here was a brand-new location only ten minutes away from where we
moved to, and I had a connection to approach them about doing it. I had already
designed a flyer that had photos of previous fashion shows I’d put on or worked
on that I could hand out. I sent an email to the Activities Director at the
community, and got an enthusiastic response back.
Most of the
fashion shows I’ve been in have had other costumers in the audience, and many
of them know the time periods or the differences. With a senior community, you
can’t expect this. So, I lean towards making them educational, along with being
pretty and entertaining. We’ve found that most audiences are really interested
in what’s going on underneath our gowns, in other words, what makes the shapes.
Occasionally, if you have time, you can have a model that’s willing to
be dressed from the inside out. But in these, our time is shorter, and I like
to have examples of the corset, hoops, and bustles to hold up and show them how
they work. You also wouldn’t want to shock the audience if they’re not used to
them.
Here Shelley
is not showing off her undies, but showing how sheer her cotton voile dress is
for summer wear.
After the
show we stepped off the stage and walked among the audience members so they
could look at our dresses close up and ask questions, which they did! That also
gives me ideas of things to include in the narratives of future shows. And
there will be future ones. They were all asking when we would come back so they
could invite their friends. The Activities Director gave us the green light for
that. We also were asked about two other locations that we might do this in, so
we have that to look forward to in the coming year. We were all just so happy to be able to dress up and show off our "works of art" again.
I’m hoping
after the holidays are over, the mood might come over me again to finish up all
those other dresses.
