Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,
This post is a continuation from a previous post. If you have not yet read Fashioning the personae: (Process Part One) then please do check that post out first.
Part two : Material Choices.
This post will explore the role of materiality and material choices. Specifically focusing on time constraints that professional costume designers may not be under. This post looks at the process in which a designer decides on which fabric to use. Certain terms and ideas occur in this post that have already been explained in the previous post. Please do read the first post if this is something that interests you.
As mentioned in the last post, this project was part of my University programme. Meaning that the whole project had to fit within a start and end date. I found this to be very limiting for many reasons, but we will get into that a bit later on. There is one main issue that I want to focus on for this post is the material choices occured before designing had taken place.
The project followed the following layout.
A brief presentation of ideas. The next step in the process is to be assigned a supervisor. I have meetings for a few weeks. There are then a few weeks of independent study. Then the final presentation of the practical element then the submission of the written element.
This layout is usually implemented when a project includes some form of performance, presentation or practical exhibition. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we were unable to produce anything practical on a full scale basis. I had to make a serious decision. The decision was I could either take a break from my studies, or to continue and alter my project.
I decided to change my project. So I altered the project in a way that would let me create some practical work. I knew that the practical work I would be allowed to make would not be what I actually wanted to make. Although my project has a practical element, I wasn’t able to host an exhibition or showcase for my practice. This was a rather large portion of my project. I also had to change what I was making. I wasn’t able to make the number of costumes I had wanted to, or at the same size. So the whole project seemed to be completely different.
When looking at the above layout, I had to also set myself other deadlines. These deadlines were for things like: budget submission, budget received by, fabric orders, stationary orders, equipment ordered, designs drafted, practical experimentation complete, fabric patterns drafted, fabric cut, fabric sewn, costume complete, finishing touches, embellishments, budget handed back, paperwork completed, costume book completed and submission handed in.
So I found myself with a rather large issue. I had just over 2 months to complete all of the above work. Any order that needed to be placed needed at least 2 weeks to be processed by the finance department. This is before adding on the delivery times. The delivery dates were impacted by the pandemic, which made wait times longer. I had to make a difficult decision rather early on in the project.
When it came to supplies and budgets, I was not able to make decisions later in the process. Instead I had to make rather front heavy decisions, in order to make sure I could get the materials and equipment I needed to complete the project. This was due to general time constraints as well as the global pandemic, which added delays to postal orders and deliveries. There were elements of the project that I was not completely happy with. I don’t believe the fabric choices, buttons, detailing or thread colours in my final designs were completely accurate. Despite being aware of this, from the beginning of my design phase, I was unable to change anything about this. The choice to buy fabric to experiment with was something that had to be done early in the process.
I wanted to experiment with the fabric and so I needed to get some fabric to use. However, this is not something that is heavily based in PaR and it is something that if I was to be working as an independent researcher, I would bear in mind. Though PaR seeks to use materials, costumes, set, actors and other theatrical conventions as research methods, the added pressure of deadlines set by external organisations made the project incredibly difficult to allow me to follow the PaR method I had decided to follow. Perhaps this could launch a larger conversation about establishments and academic criteria being restrictive or too expecting in terms of assessment procedure. The academic criteria and logistical issues in this situation required me to work at least a month in advance. Which, in a 2 month project, is almost impossible.
If I had run the project as an independent research task, I would have given myself more time to practice and design before ordering fabrics and accessories. I would have liked to have had materials to experiment with before making final decisions. In the project I had to make the final material choices when ordering the fabric I wanted to experiment with. So my experimental fabric also had to be my final fabric, which is far from ideal. I had ordered one lot of fabric when I received advice from a professional in the field to get lengths of fabric not just one meter and to experiment with texture, colour, weight, length, flexibility and opacity.
The choice to order two batches of fabric is only something that came about due to reflection in retrospect and is not something that could have been changed at the time the project was occuring. This is a shame. Ideally I would have preferred to make accurate costumes. I would have prefered to make costumes in full size with the correct fabric, attachments and accessories as well.
I think we should leave it there for this post. Please do let me know if this is something you enjoy reading. Do you want to read more into this topic?
Please do let me know if you have any experiences regarding fabric purchases. Do you have experience with deadlines that have seemed impossible to meet? If you have experience with these issues please do let me know.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you come join us stageside again soon!
(image source : Pexels)