On May 2, 2007, at 8:45 PM, Carmen Beaudry wrote:
I didn't either. As both a historian and a costume designer, I
see no reason to be embarrassed about the very good reasons why
accuracy > is often compromised on the stage. I still groan when
I watch films with terribly bastardized fashions, but I can often
tell why they did it. Telling the story is first priority.
Accuracy is icing for the geeks. :)
Melanie Schuessler
Exactly. The ones that really irk me are the ones where the story
would be better served by most accurate costumes and they still don't.
Well, yes. There's no excuse for those!
I just read a very interesting article about Memoirs of a Geisha.
Lisa Dalby, who is the only non-Japanese ever trained as a geisha,
was a consultant on the film, and was upset that they didn't use
the correct make-up, but did a modified version, until she
overheard a couple of stagehands talking about how wierd the
complete white-faced look was to them. She realized that, in order
to portray the women as beautiful and sexy, the traditional make-up
had to be modified for the modern and western audience, that where
a Japanese (and especially an older Japanese audience would see
them as being beautiful, the intended audience would not.
Yes. I actually give my costume design classes a lecture about when
to stick with accuracy and when to bend it, and it's mostly about
communication with the audience. If they're not getting what you
want to convey about your character--that they're beautiful, that
they're old, that they're sinister, or whatever--it's not a good
costume design, no matter how accurate it is. Our visual codes for
certain traits and our aesthetic is so different from that of the
past that the costume designer often has to make changes so that the
audience will get the messages the costumes are supposed to be sending.
Of course, actor safety, comfort, and the ability to do quick-
changes, dance moves, sword fights, or whatever else needs to happen
in the show also often have an impact. I once draped an HMS Pinafore
set in the 1880s (really tight sleeves on really tight bodices _plus_
bustles) and was informed after all the mockups were done that one of
the ladies had to do a handstand onstage.
Melanie Schuessler
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