The Ents and the lost Wife

So at last I have collected all the pictures from the Long Expected Party back in September. I figured I could share one last post about our Lord of The Ring themed Ent costumes.

 Let us start with the Ents.

Both of my brothers made Ent costumes. I designed them, found the fabrics and then turned the patterns, fabrics and sketches over to my brothers to create costumes of their own.

I was impressed with what they came out with, especially since they had neither of them sewn before. And they did these entirely on their own. (Well, they did have a bit of help...)

Love the tennis shoes right :D

This Ent was supposed to be a bit more of a bohemian piratical Ent. I like how how it turned out. (I did do all the dreads.)

Capes automatically make things more cool!

The lost wife has captured the Ents once again.

On to my costume...

My costume had 28 separate pieces all together that I put on to complete this outfit.

There were about 25 different fabrics used in my costume, between the corset, the skirt, the blouse, and the smaller pieces.

Then I hand knit the cape I wore. That took about a month, working off and on during rehearsals and shows. 

Then there was the hair. Yarn dreadlocks!!! There was about 10 or more different types of yarn wrapped into my hair.

It took 4 hours to wrap all my hair into the dreads. I parted my hair and had two friends working at the same time. It then took 2 hours to remove them 3 days later. I am working on a post dedicated just to the dreadlocks and how to put them in. They were really comfortable and I loved them!

I painted all my nails with black, brown metallic, and then a green glitter crackle top coat.

I made a wrist brace that laced up and attached to an arm brace above my elbow. I also made just an arm brace for the other arm.

Then there was the foot thong/sandle thing, laced to the ankle brace that wrapped around and laced to the garter. (Not really a garter, just don't know what else to call it.) I didn't get a picture of the garter. That part was covered by my skirt. And it kept sliding down while I was dancing, so I eventually tore it off and gave it to someone as a memento. (Not like you meet an Entwife on a regular basis.)

Here the Wife is with a lovely and adorable Hobbit!!!

I also wore 18 different jewelry pieces. All made by the amazing Shaylynn over at Shealynns Faerie Shoppe. Check her blog out for a more detailed description on the jewelry.

Here is the lovely Shaylynn of jewelry making fame in the dress that I made for her to wear.

Without her I would not have had the costume that I did! I would have probably tried making my own jewelry out of tree material, and that might not have worked so well....

It was great fun! And part of what I like about my costume is I am not stuck with an unusable costume in the end. I have lots of lovely jewelry that I can wear whenever. (Or when the outfit permits.) And multiple costume peices that can be turned into whatever other costumes I want them to be... within reason. But hey, I could be a hag, dryad (aka tree spirit... which is the same as an entwife, right? Same thing, just different names...), mermaid, witch... and who knows what else. But I like it best as the lost Wife.

Now time for a random little known fact. The reason the Entwifes ran away from the Ents and could no longer be found was because they decided it was way more fun to live with the pirates!!! True story.

And there you have it, the tale of an Entwife.

We are considering wearing these costumes for the premier of The Hobbit, but I am not sure I want to do that. It isn't exactly a warm costume.

I took none of the picture in this post. I borrowed them from friends. So for more pictures of the dance and others costumes check out these two, Caleb Royer Studios and Shaylynn. My mom and some other friends were also responsible for one or two of the photos as well.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed it. As always, I appreciate comments and questions.

Toodles.

Designer of the Week: Edith Head

Which single female has won the most Academy Awards? Was one of Hollywood's leading costume designers in the 20th century? Was known for her dark glasses? Was only 5' 1 1/2"?

If you said Edith Head, then you are right.

Born Edith Claire Posener in 1897 she was the daughter of Max Posener and Anna Levy. Her father was a naturalized American citizen from Prussia and her mother was born in Missouri to an Austrian father and Bavarian mother. It is unknown whether Max and Anna where ever married but in1905 Anna married mining engineer Frank Spare. They passed Edith off as their mutual child. The family moved frequently as Spare's jobs moved. Frank was Catholic and therefore Edith became one as well.

In 1919 Edith received a bachelor of arts degree in letters and sciences with honors in French from the University of California, Berkeley and in1920 she received a master of arts degree in romance languages from Stanford University. After working for a year substitute teaching French at the Bishop's School in La Jolla she took a position teaching French for the Hollywood School for Girls. Wanting a higher salary she also told the school that she could teach art, even though she had only briefly studied it in high school. 

She decided to take evening art classes at the Chouinard Art College to improve her drawing skills. On July 25, 1923 she married Charles Head the brother of one of her classmates. This marriage ended in divorce in 1936 after several years of separation. Although she continued to be known as Edith Head until her death.

In 1924, without any costuming experience, Head was hired as a costume sketch artist at Paramount Pictures in the costume department. She later said that she had borrowed another student's sketches for the job interview. 

She began designing for silent film starting with The Wanderer in 1925 and by the 1930s she had astablished herself as one of Hollywood's leading costume designers. She worked at Paramount for 43 years designing  movies. On March 27, 1967 she went over to Universal Pictures where she remained until her death in 1981 after designing her last movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid which was released after her death.

On September 8, 1940 Edith married again to set designer Wiard Ihnen. This marriage lasted until his death in 1979.

Throughout her long career she worked on over 500 movies. Some of the most well known being Rear Window, The Sting, Vertigo, Sunset Boulevard, and Roman Holiday.  She was nominated for 35 Oscars, receiving 8 of them. 

Those being:

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1950 (Black & White) for The Heiress

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1951 (Black & White) for All About Eve

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1951 (Color) for Samson and Delilah

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1952 (Black & White) for A Place in the Sun

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1954 (Black & White) for Roman Holiday

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1955 (Black & White) for Sabrina

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1961 (Black & White) for The Facts of Life

Oscar for Best Costume Design 1973 for The Sting

Bette Davis in All About Eve (1951)

Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1952)

Head was known for her low-key working style and usually would consult with the female stars with whom she worked. This meant she soon became a favorite for many of the leading female stars of the 40s and 50s. She was often "lent out" to other studios on the request of female stars. 

Gail Patrick in Her Husband Lies (1937)

Barbara Stanwick in Ball of Fire (1941)

Among the actresses Edith Head designed for were:

Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Dorthy Lamour, Betty Huton, Loretta Young, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Hedy Lemarr, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, Aubrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Natalie Wood, and Katherine Hepburn.

Dorothy Lamour in Jungle Princess (1936)

Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief (1955)

Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953)

Barbara Stanwick in The Lady Eve (1941)

Despite being a favorite among many stars Head still had those who did not like to work with her. Most notably Claudette Colbert. Head also had the reputation for taking credit for others work. This was rather easy in the era of studio-dominated film production when a department head commonly took credit for the designs from his or her department. 

Claudette Colbert in Zaza (1939)

Edith Head died  from myelofibrosis on October 24, 1981, four days before her 84th birthday.

Some random facts about Mrs. Edith Head.

A USA 37¢ commemorative postage stamp was issued in 2003, celebrating American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes with a picture of Head working on a dress.

Her trademark sunglasses were really blue lensed glasses. Looking through blue glass was a common trick of costumers in the Black and White ere to get a sense of how the color would photograph. Edith had the glasses made special for her.

Edith Head is interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Cathedral Slope section, plot #1675.

Many viewers of the 2004 film The Incredibles felt that the personality and mannerisms of the superhero costume designer Edna Mode was a colorful caricature of Edith Head. Edna Mode's sense of style, her assertive no-nonsense character and iconic round glasses were more then likely a homage to Head. However the film's director Brad Bird has neither confirmed or denied this.

Some of my favorite Edith Head quotes:

"Your dress should be tight enough to show you are a woman, yet loose enough to show you are a lady."

Anna May Wong in Dangerous to Know (1938)

"What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen he's become a different person."

Mary Martin in Love Thy Neighbor (1942)

"You can lead a horse to water and you can even make it drink, but you can't make actresses wear what they don't want to wear."

Hedy Lamarr in The Strange Woman (1946)

Sketch to dress with Grace Kelly.

There you have it, a brief history of Edith Head the Hollywood designer.

Toodles

The Muppets! Amy Adams Costumes

Yesterday I went to the movie theaters in the United States for the first time. I went out with my wonderful sister-in-law and we went to see The Muppets. I wasn't expecting much. I knew I would at least enjoy the Muppets themselves, but I did not expect to see anything remotely interesting with costumes. 

I was surprised!!!

Amy Adams wore the most adorable outfits!

Her outfits were all very retro, with a 1950's appeal.

She started the show out in an adorable red floral blouse with a bright yellow circle skirt and red belt. 

I loved all of the bright, bold colour combinations.

The next dress she wore was a green striped dress.

The dress has a matching belt and the skirt is rather full. It looked as if it were a circle skirt to me.

She had her red hair curled and pulled back softly from her face and wore bright orange heel 

The sleeves were tulip sleeves! That made me happy as it is one of my favorite sleeve cuts. It allows for so much more range of motion.

Here is a closer up on the bodice. It is cut on the bias and gathered, giving it a princess appearance.

Then she wore a aqua blue dress with a bright purple belt. 

Here is a bit closer on the bodice. It had a wide oval neckline with little bows for trim.

For a lot of the outfits I could not find pictures yet. There were several other really cute ones.

I hope that movies such as this will bring back some of these fashions. They are so pretty.

This was one of my favorite outfits that Amy wore. It looks as if it is the same basic pattern that was used in green dress that she wore near the beginning. It is a pink eyelet with simple set in sleeves. I could not find a full dress picture of this one.

She also wore a stunning peach shirt waist dress with pin tucks adorning the bodice.

The dress had purple and pink flowers printed on the skirt. She wore this dress with a purple belt.

Here is her final outfit. She wore a bright orange bodice with a brown skirt and cream belt. 

The bodice was pleated and crossed-over in the front.

The sleeves were split flutter sleeves.

The costumes may not have been impressive and stunning period costumes with tons of intricate detail. But they were charming and adorable.

Amy Adam's outfits provide some goodies for the eyes of a costumer, seamstress, or retro enthusiast.

So, go see it while the costumes can still be seen on the big screen.