The Tempest

For our Shakespeare brief, I chose Colleen Muscha's design from the Utah Shakespeare Festival to interpret. This is for the character 'Stephano', the comedy relief in the play. He is an alcoholic imbecile, so i thought it would be fun to create more of a character piece. It consists of a doublet, shirt with ruffles and cuffs, trunk hose, tights, shoes and a hat.

I used a Renaissance tailoring pattern book to adapt for the pattern, the shirt was made from a zero-waste style pattern, essentially a big rectangle. The cuff proportions were made using Myles' measurements and ratios, which were then altered in the fitting. I bought the tights first, then pattern matched the base fabric for the trunk hose. This was my first time trying many new techniques, including the construction of historical garments for stage. The methods are different as it needs to last and be easy to take on and off. 

The cloth was hard to source, as the right shades were hard to come by, so once I'd found a good starting point, I dyed some of the squares darker orange using a square cut sponge.

The panels are all bias-binded and the buttons were covered with the same tape, to colour match. I made the belly by layering up wadding onto a panel of jersey, which I then attached to a vest to be worn underneath the shirt. 

For my experience making a hat, it was quite a success - three panels of buckram covered in a yellow jersey, with the same blue bias tape and a big feather to finish.