When Cinderella arrived at the prince’s ball in her beautiful dress, stepping out of a majestic carriage led by four noble horses, she knew a secret that only the Fairy Godmother shared. A few short hours ago, the horses had been mice, the carriage a pumpkin, and the dress mere rags. If the people at the ball had known, they would have been amazed at how the Fairy Godmother turned something so mundane into something so wondrous. Even then, however, they may have missed the most important part.
The real skill of the Fairy Godmother was in seeing that those things were never mundane in the first place. Perhaps she chose to help Cinderella that night because she could see it too. There was always majesty in the pumpkin, nobility in the mice, and beauty in the rags. I have always loved Cinderella, but when it comes to my work, the Fairy Godmother is my role model. With every costume I design and every seam I sew, I hope to show the magic and wonder that is already in the fabric of the world.
However, as magical as art can be, there is one big difference: art seems to take a lot more time and effort! Turning a pumpkin into a carriage took the Fairy Godmother a few waves of a wand, but turning imagination into a costume takes me weeks of hard work. Unfortunately for us, the Fairy Godmother didn’t leave a tutorial on how she did it so quickly, so here are my tips on how I try to bring the magic out of the “mundane”.
My particular style of magic is telling stories through clothing. I am a seamstress and designer, and I primarily create custom pieces for creative photoshoots, where I collaborate with other artists (photographers, models, makeup artists, and other designers) to tell a story in a single image. There is no “prompt,” so we all have to come up with our own ideas of what to create, and that’s where the first challenge comes in.
At the beginning of the process, the possibilities are infinite, and limitations are needed to make any kind of meaningful progress. I find that if I start with those limitations, I am more likely to come up with ideas that I can use. Since I make clothing, the limitation that affects my work the most is the fabric itself. My mother used to say, “Never fight with your hair!” She meant that my sisters and I should style our hair based on what it wanted to do; forcing curls onto hair that wanted to be straight (or vice versa) would never end well. I think about that a lot when I work with fabric. If I start with an idea and try to force it on the fabric, it may not end well, but if I am able to cooperate with what the fabric does well, I get the best results.
Picking fabric out with this approach requires flexibility and open-mindedness. I can’t force an idea if the fabric isn’t there, so instead I need to have a lot of possibilities in my head so that I can match them to the fabric I find. In my hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, there is a wonderful shop called Create/Exchange that offers second-hand materials and fabrics. Because the inventory is always changing, I sometimes don’t find the fabric for the idea I want, which means I have to let go of the idea I had (at least for the moment). However, I often find fabric that fits a different idea perfectly, and many times it’s something I would have never thought to look for. Looking for fabric for the ideas and thinking up ideas for fabric is a great way to get the creative juices flowing at the beginning of the process.
Once I find my fabric, the next step is to create the silhouette of the dress. There are two general ways that I typically make garments: patterns and draping. Each choice has its strengths and weaknesses, and the choice depends on the end goal. If the piece needs to fit a very specific look (period outfits, for example), patterns are frequently best. A pattern consists of a picture of the end product, and a collection of diagrams that show what cuts you can use to get the pieces to fit together according to that picture. As long as I select the right pattern, I can trust that by following it I will get what I am looking for.
If the end goal does not require too much specificity, but instead has room for more improvisation, draping can often be better than using patterns. Draping is the process of taking the fabric and pinning it to the mannequin to see how it flows, where the natural folds are, how the weight affects its motion, and so on. This is another way I can follow my mother’s idea to “never fight your hair”. Draping can help me see what the fabric wants to do, and to sculpt it accordingly.
Patterning and draping both require careful measurements, good sewing technique, and all the small artistic decisions that combine together to make a big difference. These artistic decisions are mostly unique to the project I’m working on, but there are a couple general themes I tend to follow. First is a sense of abundance. I like to have my pieces look larger than life so they feel more like a fairy tale. Also, since they are mainly used in photography rather than film or theater, I also need to make sure they have dramatic silhouettes that feel dynamic without needing to be in motion.
The second thing I focus on is the physical feeling of the fabric. As a young girl I was continuously confused by halloween costumes - why didn’t they feel like a princess’s dress? In my imagination, the underskirt was buttery soft, the cape would keep me warm, and I could feel all the layers of the petticoat tickle the dance floor when I would twirl. It always made such a difference to me when it came to feeling like I was really a princess. Now, when I collaborate with models, I want them to be inspired by feeling like they are wearing a real fairy-tale garment. Seeing a model put on a garment and feel transported to her own fairy tale is such a rewarding thing to see right before a photoshoot!
This brings us to the final step of the process - the shoot itself. This is one of my favorite parts of the process because it’s the part that brings in all the other artists I collaborate with. I’ve been mostly talking about my own creative process here, but the magic really comes from the collaboration of all the different artists who participate before, during, and after the shoot. Every photo needs a set designer or location scout to find or create the right setting, a photographer to take the photo and do the editing work afterwards, a hair and makeup artist, a model to bring the outfit to life, and sometimes many other roles. The team can be as small as two people, but sometimes each of those tasks is done by a different person, each lending his or her unique expertise. Whether the team is small or big, the art is always better when different artists can work together towards a shared vision.
So there you have it! That’s my creative process in a nutshell. It takes a lot more time and a lot more people than it took the Fairy Godmother, but when it goes well, it can show people the same thing they saw at the Prince’s ball: the magic hidden in everyday things.
(Throwback photo of my first attempt at a photoshoot in my old house-we had a perfectly awful Cinderella basement.)