Homemade mannequin

For my practical work I decide to also create 2 mannequins on which to put my designs while finding an interesting way to make mannequins on the internet.
The needed materials and their cost for one mannequin are:

• Pillow filling (from around 2-3 pillows depending on the their size) - I used two big pillows at the price of 2,80 for the package.
• 3 rolls of duct tape from around 2,00 pounds and the total cost is 6,00 pounds
• one fit to the body t-shirt which is good to be with a bit longer length (to the begining of the hips). I bought one with long sleeves for 3,50
• A piece of carboard for what I used an old ardboard delivery box at home
• Food foil which cost 1 pound

total cost: 15,30 pounds

For the creation are needed at lest two people - one of them to be used a a fossil for the mannequin and the other to assist him whilst covering his body with duct tape and cutting it from behind afterwards. For that reason, I decided to be the "mannequin" as I will make my costumes using my measurements. First put on the "mannequin" the very fit to the body t-shirt. It's important the t-shirt to be a bit longer until the beginning of the hips. On the back and the front side around the neck I wrapped a layer of foiland my assistant started covering it with duct tape.

It is important to start with 3 main duct tape line as I've illustrated on the picture above.

When covering the whole silhouette to the end of the t-shirt and and the foil wth the duct tape, my assistant did a cut on the middle of the back from the botton to the top in order to remove it from my body. If there are any rough spaces either put another layer on them or you can also do it when it's already filled.

Then, we carefully put a duct tape line to cover the cut trying to keep the same shape and started to filling the body with smaller pieces of pillow filler.

When it's hard enough we covered the holes on the hands and the neck with flat duct tape lines. The big down cut in the end of it we put a cardboard piece (outlined in the size of the cut with a pencil first) and covered it with duct tape.

I also made a small research on ebay about mannequin prices to see if its really cheaper to create one youself or to buy it. The prices for a mannequin start from 9 pounds per a mannequin which is more expensive than my home creation but a really good side of making a home one is that you can use the measurements of the person for whom you are creating your designs, extend the lenght or the sleeves, and also do it more creativily experimenting with colors,

References:
n.d.,n.d. [online] How to shape your own sewing mannequin. Avalable at: http://www.handimania.com/diy/your-own-shape-sewing-mannequin.html [Accessed 25/06/2014]

Nothern Ballet's Nutcracker - reviews

Mentioning earlier that The snowflakes costumes from Northern ballet had their greatest impact on me compared to the other snowflakes costumes, I managed to explore some critical reviews about the costumes for the Northern ballet's Nutcracker - including different performances across the UK. For me, the most capturing element of these costumes were the contrast of the bright blue color on white and the hair accessories, so I was interested to discover other elements suck as lighting, sets,choreography,etc. have their influence too. Here are some quotes which I selected:

Charles Hutchinson from New York press names the whole performance "delightful contrast/alternative escape" contrasting it to classic panthomime. According to his critiral view a great impact on the whole performance have the sets pointing out as most effective the way the castle is designed as well as the snow land which I've been analysing for my practical work. Another aspect of the performance emphasized in his review, is the choregraphy pointing out the mixture of humour and enchanting.

"The snow instead is to be encountered in glistening, twinkling, heavy-falling form on the stage front cloth, just as it greeted you when Nixon last revived his beautiful Regency setting of the late 19th century Christmas ballet in early December 2010.

If you enjoy Charles Cusick Smith’s designs for the York Theatre Royal pantomime, then you can re-double that joy for The Nutcracker, where his grand designs are truly a magical winter wonderland, whether for the castle, the snowy fairyland or the beautiful garden of Act II. Christropher Giles’s contribution as costume design assistant is vital too: the Regency couture is as spectacular as the scenery, and everything is shown off to maximum effect in Mark Jonathan’s lighting."

The balletnew.co.uk calls the costume "vivid" which also confirms my opinion about the strong impact of the colors of the costumes.

Thepublicreview.com also built their review on sompliments mainly about the set and the choreography, without mentioning The Land of sno in particular. Their main describtion of the show is a simplycity in the story line and extravagancee in the outlook. An extravagance achivied with a very high budget:"There is certainly no expense spared on the staging or exquisite costumes in this production, providing a pleasing visual spectacle throughout."
There is not much mentioned about the costume and their impact, except describing them as beautiful.

Additionally, I did find a very interesting opinion from the audience on the northern ballet website which verifies my opinion that costumes are very realistic and are implying real feelings as I said the snowflakes' costumes made me feel freezing. 

Sources:
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/theatre/10123411.Review__The_Nutcracker__Northern_Ballet__Leeds_Grand_Theatre/
http://balletnews.co.uk/northern-ballets-the-nutcracker/
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_07/nov07/jt_rev_nbt_1007.htm
http://www.thepublicreviews.com/the-nutcracker-grand-theatre-leeds/

Creative Selfie - street event

As a member of the Get Involved 17 group, I was involved in the costume, masks and prop making of the Creative Selfie project which took part on the 1st of June in the city center of Nottingham. This project has been developed over the past month as a street performance/flash mob which to celebrate the creativity of young people. The name of the project includes the very popular nowadays word "selfie" which refer to "a picture of yourself taken by yourself". This word is widely promoted and used by young people in the social networks which was a good reason to engage our project with that word.
The plan for the events was to develop 4 ideas expressing the main idea into props, costumes and masks. Afterwards, to organise a walk throught the city engaging the people with our idea and stimulating them to participate by presenting their creativity.Here are the four ideas and how we created them:

1. The head mask
The Head represents all the different young people around the world. For that reason, it's covered with a mixture of different skin tones and has two faces - a girl face on the front and boy face on the back. The girl's hair was made of many different colors like a rainbow as a symbol of creativity.
The base for the mask was made of plastic rubber bon and card bord skeleton which was first covered with newspaper. Afterwards we covered it with small paper pieces in different skin tone colors glued from both sides with glue and stick yes and mouth which were drawn and cut from paper. The glue we used was washable to avoid ruining our clother while sticking the pieces althought it lasts for a shorter period. The hair was also made from paper rolled and sticked to the head. There a small cut on the neck of the head for the eyes of the person wearing it and also there were supposed to be two cuts from both sides for the shoulders in order to be more stable but we hadn't got enough preparation time to make them so we needed two people to assist the person with the head while walking through the city.

2. The box
The black box is actually a big carboard box, which we painted black on the outer side cutting some small holes. The inner side of the box we covered with our selfie pictures and we sticked opened small bags of pink gloss on each corner of the box. This boc was made with the idea to show how some people at their young years may look quite shy and quiet but they hide a gifted and full of ideas souls. The people were invited to look through the holes of the box and to see the pictures inside.

3. Mirror masks

The idea with the mirror was quit simple - when people look at them to see theirself. It was a way to spread our celebration and creativity through the streets. They were made of silver foil paper.

4. The kimono

The kinomo idea was the main one in terms of engaging the audience. For this costume we used a normal old kimono and extended the sleeves and the back with fabric. The plan was to start drawing ot it covering the top part and then walking through the street to stimulate people to draw their inspiration on the long back part. we also attached some selfie photos with safety pins on the back of it.

Here are also some of the picture from tour walk through the city taken by one of the member of Get Involved 17 group - Vika Nightingale:

Our work will also be shown on the Welcome week of Nottingham Trent University in September as a advertisement of Nottingham Contemporary and Get Involved 17 among the new students of the university.