FACEBOOK sightings !

Ok :) sometimes it's real work to get photos of the costumes i have designed .... But with a little hunting on facebook i found 2 from this season.. below are Aran Bell as Solar in La Bayadere, and Melody Herrera as a Sugar Plum Fairy.

By the Bay with the Beattles.

Below are a couple designs for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago's school of dance. The first design is for the solo piece Baroque Beatles. It's inspired by Sgt. Peppers Band and will be a collage of different musical instruments, marching costumes, and Beatles imagery. The bottom design is for a piece called Bay Breeze, and there will be 16 girls in this. I will custom design the fabrics for each work. I will put photos up of the construction, and finished product.

Basque to Basics. Wonder Bread does it best.

Lately my projects have included, complicated pieces, tons of trim, and everything from cat toys to puffy paint. However today's was simple, classic and very refreshing. With assistance from Mio Gubeneric we created a fantastically fit , 11 layer, hooped rehearsal tutu for Joffrey ballet academy dancer Hilary Katzman. It was very enjoyable to create something simple with fantastic fit, and finely made. I made the top layer of tulle 1.75 times fuller then i normally do to give this simple skirt a richer, fuller look.

Walnuts, Pecans, Cashews, Filberts, any kind of NUT really.

I was recently commissioned by the Charleston Ballet Theatre to design and create a new Nutcracker Mask for there existing production. The turn around on this project was very brisk, under two weeks. Thankfully I recruited the help of two amazing friends, Miodrag Gubeneric (costume designer, and technician) and Lavinia Morozan (seamstress to the stars, and all around amazing lady).

The Materials list for the project was almost as fun as creating the mask with friends.

- Thermoplast plastic mesh to form the face

- Plastic flower pot to form face over

- Foam Pipe insulation for hair and hat bits

- Cat toys for feathers on top of hat

- Christmas Ornaments

- Shrinky Dink to create eyes and cheeks

- Velvet , Pleather, Lame'

- Rhinestones, Sequins, Paillettes, Puffy Paint, Heatbond

-Digitized computer embroidery for the teeth

Below are a few process shots, and the finished mask.

(Mio in Thermoplast Base / Applique' and puffy paint)

(me attaching banding to crown)



Finished Product.

New piece for one or my Favorite Choreographers!

This is a Unitard i just designed and built for a solo piece choreographed by Garrett Smith. It is for a Karly Wilkens of the Houston Ballet Academy. I really like the pop in colors between the wine nylon spandex and the yellow and fascia airbrushing.

Garretts only requirement was that this look have a hood, which turned out to be my favorite part :) Lately my approach to work in stretch fabrics has been to create looks more complex than leo or unitards. I work to give more form to these simple silhouettes. Below is a leotard design i'm working on to create a "bodice" feel in stretch fabric surprisingly for another new work by Mr. Smith.


--Below is the translation of my above design into stretch fabric.. Designing custom textiles is new for me, but was very fun, and perfect for the project.. See another finished dress from the piece, and a couple of the costume renderings in the blog tittled - Design for new work by Garrett Smith. -

Dragons are to Seldom Toddler PETS!

This is the Dragon Puppet i created to go with my nieces Halloween costume this year, she is going as a Princess of the Dragons. The dress i made her was cute.. but the puppet turned out way cool!

I Draped the pattern for the body in muslin.... I started by making a dragon "dress form" out of lumps of newspaper and masking tape.... i just kept adding paper until i had the shape of a body i was looking for...... a little twisted and whimsical... below is the paper base.



After draping muslin over this form i sandwiched high density upholstery foam between 2 layers of cotton Bobinette,, this gave me fabric seam allowance to stitch rather than trying to glue or stitch the foam bits together. It's a technique often used in making fat suits for theatre. The body of the dragon is once "piece" it's shape comes totally from a series of funky shaped darts, it is similar to how I created the ram horns for Stanton Welches "Dolls House" see them in the ballet section of my web page http://www.travishalsey.com/ .
Next i added a 1940's inspired bias cut and pleated belly (in picture above). Then i created limbs and covered the body and head with an orange burn out velvet. The eyes were made from Christmas ornaments, and the eyebrows and tail tuft from cat toys. (the feathers in some cat toys are some times much nicer than the kinds you find in craft stores) I would have to say that this little guys wings were my favorite part. They are made from a sandwich of grey crystal sheer with a copper mesh, and iridescent silk in between. The spines of the wings are made from plastic aquarium tubing, some times Home Depot is my first stop when starting a project like this.


The finishing work involved glitter glue, some nail polish(for wetness) , sequins, a chicken feather flame erupting from the dragons mouth, and of course a full round of airbrushing. I hope this inspires you for your next puppet project.

Design for new work by Garrett Smith

Coreographer and Inspiration Garrett smith is putting a new "neoclassical" work together in Utah. The base of this design is taken from an oil portrait relevant to the time period.... then i mushed some other colors atop of it, and twisted the pieces abit. These will actualy be leotards with stretch skirts, and i'm having the leotards digitaly printed to fabric , then they will be assembled in chicago. Shoulde be an interesting project.... I'm looking forward to it. :) I will put up photos when things get rolling.... (Below is one of the finished dresses)

I created 11 different bodices total. In the end i was very very pleased with the outcome. It's a process i will use again.