The Design Process - Costumes & Styling

To source costumes for my characters and gather inspiration for their styling I have visited Hepwrights Vintage Shop in Bedford Place, Hampshire Wardrobe in Winchester specialising in costume hire and lastly Beatrix Emporium a vintage shop in Southampton's town centre. 

Here are some of my first costume ideas for each character although I will have to choose only one for each as I only want the characters make-up to change through the shoots and not the clothing, each character will stick to just one significant piece. 

Rapunzel

I choose these pieces as I felt they had an essence of femininity and innocence with the pastel and more pale tones and the soft flowing textures and cuts of material. They create a sense of purity which is what I hope to get across in my representation of Rapunzel's character, this will also be reflected in the simplicity of her make-up.

The Prince

I used to be part of a dance company when I was younger and was regularly involved with the theatre and played parts in several pantomimes  This outfit is one that I wore as part of a extras cast in a pantomime and after sifting through my attic I found it and felt that it would be perfect for the styling of the Prince. It is tight fitted and a deep blue velvet material that gives it a luxurious look and feel, I also think that the design and fur elements are apt to the styling of the time and when researching costumes and clothing of old princes this is type of jacket that they would have worn.

Little Red Riding Hood

Both these capes are two different shades of red and I prefer the cape with a darker shade of red as I feel it gives a more luxurious feel and reflects the velvet material of the cape mentioned in the original story, however the other choice of cap is shorter and would work better for styling underneath the cape and a full length image, these are things I will have to consider before hiring.

Cinderella 

 I thought that these three dresses from Hepwrights resembled the rag - like style of dress that I was looking for with Cinderella's styling. I really like the orange dress as I feel it will work well with the merging composition as it has a flowing piece at the bottom but my favourite of the two is the duck blue dress as it is more accurate to the grey rag dress described in the original story. 

Ugly Sister

With the styling of the ugly sister in Cinderella I pictured her to look like a young woman from the Victorian era. So when looking further into this I spent a lot of time researching Victorian fashion, I remembered that my mother owned a Victorian style dress that were actually her bridesmaid dresses and I feel the shape, fit and style of this dress will be perfect for the character of the ugly sister, I also feel that the light blue tone of the dress under lighting will add to the dark theme of the book.

Gretel

I want Gretel to appear through styling and make-up as a child, I felt the colour of this dress, baby blue, was successful in doing this, this dress also reflects what I originally wanted with Gretel's styling.

The Witch

With the styling of The Witch I will be adding onto either dress with vine and leaves to create a dark, forest like appearance to the dress. I really like the darkness to the one dress and also the material as I feel it will pick up on the camera well with lighting however I also like the texture of the other green dress as it reminds me of the texture of a tree bark, I need to decide here whether I want the theme of darkness or the theme of the forest to be the most prominent aspect of the shoot.

Snow White 

I wanted the character of Snow White to come across as especially innocent and pure looking so the colour white was an obvious choice. I stuck with this colour theme when looking for my costume ideas. Out of all my characters this is the one that I've found hardest to choose as I feel all the dresses symbolise purity in some shape or form. I wanted this look to be quite simplistic so I have chosen dresses with little detail and no colour or patterning.  

 Out of all the dresses I have shortlisted, I now have the difficult task of deciding which dress is most suitable in regards too make up, hair, and the overall theme of the Snow White story.