In my costuming career there's only a few things I regret. Some have to do with lessons learned about techniques and how I could have executed things better. Some have to do with uncomfortable interactions with actors, directors, or other designers. And some have to do with what I had to make. Most are comical to look back upon, or important lessons that I needed to learn. There's only one thing I've done that makes me feel icky. I'll get to that one last.
Most of the uncomfortable interactions are pretty funny to look back on. The show with the most discomfort was The Full Monty. Whenever I tell people that I costumed The Full Monty they laugh and say "well that must have been easy." It wasn't. The characters aren't naked until the end of the show. They are dressed the whole time, and need fancy tear away outfits for the final number. I really enjoyed making tear-away clothing, and the skill has come in handy quit often.
Full Monty discomfort involved mostly underwear. The main 6 guys strip down into red tear-away thongs. When I passed out the thongs the guys decided that after trying them on they needed to show me for approval. Funny looking back, but weird for me at the time. There's also the scene when they are at Harold's house and decide that they need to get comfortable with each other and strip down to their undies. The director and I had a blast deciding what kind of undies each of the guys would wear. Discussing it with the actors and buying and fitting the undies however was a little weird. I spent a lot of time shopping for men's underwear. It was also the first time that I've had to ask an actress to please wear a bra.
There's also some people that just don't wear clothes well. Either they are a strange shape, sloppy, or just awkward, but nothing looks quit right on them. There was one actor who had an issue with his pants where he would pull them up to sit and then he'd stand and the part he'd pulled up would get stuck in his crotch. I tried to discuss it with him - standing techniques and alternate underwear choices that would prevent this - but he kept blaming the pants. Those are a couple of my regrets because while I do my best to make them look good, I don't have the budget or time to tailor things to odd shaped people, or teach people how to wear clothes right. I often end up brushing these costumes off in frustration. It's my one regret from an otherwise perfect Sound of Music.
Then there's the actors who don't want to wear what you give them. Often times they have no choice - I have wonderful memories of the poor teenaged boy who had to wear lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat for Sound of Music. He kept trying to make the hat cooler by pulling it down over one eye. Most of the time we compromise over the items, but there's one pair of pink hot pants that I bought that would have been awesome for this one character and she refused to wear them. They are still in storage and I keep trying to use them, but haven't had much luck.
One reoccurring problem that I've had is costumes that blend in with the set. It's happened way more times than I'm proud of. Also, not entirely my fault. I didn't always know what the sets were gonna look like. There was this perfect patterned green dress that blended in perfectly with sponge painted pattern on the walls of the set. And she wore the dress for half the play so I had to find all kinds of aprons and sweaters she could wear to cover it up. The set designer in Steel Magnolias painted the set pink. Shelby's color is pink and she wears it the whole time. I now try to go into a show with better communication of set colors, but that's not always known.
When costuming you don't just get to do the pretty stuff. There's also the ugly things or the mean things. I always feel a little bad when distressing perfectly good clothing, but the actual distressing is so much fun that I get over it quick. But then there's certain characters that have to look certain ways. Whores have to be slutty, "large lady" has to be fat, and Nazi's have to wear swastikas. For Sound of Music I pawned off the making of the Nazi arm bands to someone else - I feel a little bad about it, but not too bad.
I've gotten used to most of it, but there's still the one thing that makes me feel icky, and strangely it's from one of my favorite plays that I've worked on:
The Foreigner. It's a funny, touching comedy about diversity overcoming racism and prejudice. In this show the bad guys in the climax of the play are the Klan. The show takes place in Georgia and the characters have a confrontation with the Klan. So I had to make a dozen Klan robes. That was awkward. They are now all packed up in a box and hidden in costume storage somewhere like a dirty skeleton in the costume closet.
And karma's given it back to me. All of the actors who were put in ugly costumes that they didn't like, or outfits that didn't flatter them, or had to wear costumes that were hot or heavy, they got their revenge last summer. I was cast as Dawn in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and as I said before whores have to be slutty. When I first put on this one costume I knew that it was costuming revenge for whatever I had done to actors or would do in the future.
Look at all that fishnet! OMG and my whiteness shining through those little holes like beacons. Yikes! The side/back cutout that shows off my love handles so well. Ack! But I wore it, proudly. And now I have very few inhibitions left:
Tada! That's me in Wedding Singer. Later in that number we all strip and I do more of this in a bustier. Hooray for double-stick tape.
