prototypes

We had decided to approach this contract as a group, but in the end one of us had to sign the contract, and that was me. It was my first venture into being responsible for a project like this, and to be honest, a little nervous about signing on the dotted line. There were six cutters, including myself, who worked on it and although 60 costumes is not a lot of work for this many cutters, it ended up working out quite well as the timeline was very short. My nervousness was dispelled pretty quickly as we all got into the project- I have nothing but good things to say about everyone's commitment over the course of the project.

Once we had our meeting with the designer, (the very talented John Pennoyer) the producer chose three sketches to be the prototypes.The designs varied from contemporary looks to ethnic and period interpretations. We had no idea what the overall concept of the event was even though we were working on it. The important thing for them was to keep everything under wraps so the event would be a surprise on the day.

We rented the space to work in and proceeded to almost sequester ourselves due to the confidential nature of the work. This turned out to be a fine balancing act between obviously working in the building but pretending we weren't doing anything special, to papering over the windows in the doors, drawing the blinds and putting up "private rental- keep out" signs.

Three of the six cutters had the prototype sketches to do and since I was the organizer, I got to work purchasing thread and zippers and all the assorted supplies that we needed.

Every costume sketch had a volunteer performer assigned to wear it and we were given a full length photo of the person and maybe five or six really basic measurements. It wasn't a lot of information to cut by! We also wouldn't be the ones fitting or altering the costumes, and the onus was on us to get it right the first time both in fit, and design interpretation because they wouldn't have time to do much correcting after the costumes were shipped.

We shipped our prototypes off just before Thanksgiving and waited for the word to continue.