The Three Horses
Hotel guests comprised of 5 people, although technically JB was not paying to
stay there...
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| Photo by Ashley Foster |
Mr Pinkerton
The owner and editor of the 'Local Gazette' newspaper.
Staying at the 'Three
Horses' hotel whilst his house was being redecorated; I decided to go with
the look of a tired and jaded businessman.
Dark grey suit, shirt and tie;- because of being a fed up businessman
and owner of a newspaper he would be likely to own a well fitting suit, but he
wouldn't be dressed entirely well, so his shirt was tucked in however his tie
was a bit loose around the neck.
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| Design by Katie Pollitt. Photo by Ashley Foster |
The above photo was taken at the dress rehearsal, but what
was a nice detail was that the actor brought in purple headphones to wear
with the costume when it came to the performance nights. This was just right
for the character who was redecorating part of his house with periwinkle
paper. Yes periwinkle. Not blue. So it seems about right for the character to coordinate
headphone colours with the shirt and tie being worn that day.
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| Original individual photos by Ashley Foster |
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| Photo by Ashley Foster |
Janine
Journalist at Pinkerton's Newspaper ('The Local Gazette'), staying at the hotel to be close at hand for Mr Pinkerton over the next few days.
The actress brought in a navy blue shift dress, before I had
finished with designs, which suited her really well, however not the character
so much at the beginning of the play.
I designed Janine to wear a blouse, pencil skirt and heels, as I thought the shift dress seemed a bit too smart and sleek for the Editor's ditzy reporter, and felt like the skirt and blouse combo would suit her better. However I would have gone for a girlier blouse, but as I've said compromises have to be made when we have no budget and the actors are mainly self-costuming.
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| Design by Katie Pollitt. Photo by Ashley Foster |
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| Design by Katie Pollitt |
However the next day change was going to be a very quick one
for Janine, so we thought it would be
best for her to wear her dress underneath the blouse and skirt, which was
luckily possible due to the same lengths of the skirt and dress.
Towards the end of the play we notice that Janine isn't as ditzy/dumb as she looks, and is
rather good at observing the goings on within the hotel...more than she's meant
to...
So as we start to see that Janine proves herself to be smart, it seemed right to
make her dress more smartly as well.
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| Original individual photos by Ashley Foster |
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| Photo by Ashley Foster |
JB
Jamie Bond (JB) the
drunken baffoon trying to impersonate secret agent 007, James Bond.
Now because of his James Bond impersonation he had to have
the basis of the stereotypical suave James Bond...just a drunken James Bond.
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| Design by Katie Pollitt |
Throughout the play we see that his hair becomes messier,
and his skew-whiff bow tie becomes undone (however this can't be seen in the
dress rehearsal performance photos).
No changes were needed for JB...because I mean he's a drunken slob so why would he bother to
change for the next day....he's probably too drunk to realise it's the next
day...
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| Original individual photos by Ashley Foster |
The Competition Winners:
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| Photo by Ashley Foster |
Ed
One of the newspaper's competition winners; winning a stay
in the 5 star 'Three Horses' hotel
with his wife.
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| Photo by Ashley Foster |
Holly
Ed's wife and the other competition
winner/guest in the 'Three Horses'
hotel.
The first time we meet Ed
and Holly they are on their way
to the hotel in big raincoats and wheeling along suitcases.
For the rest of the play it was quite a hard decision on what
look to give the couple. I had to have a few discussions with the
writer/director about them to figure out what sorts of costumes to give them.
Ed and Holly were to be guests that would look
out of place in the five star hotel. So I immediately thought bad fashion
sense, scruffy, wouldn't really know what to wear to a five star
restaurant and that people tend to
change for dinner.
I thought for Ed
perhaps an ugly short sleeved shirt, unbuttoned at the top, showing a dirty white
vest underneath and a chain necklace. Matched with either a pair of jeans or
brown trousers and trainers/pumps.
In that case Holly would be wearing
some horrible fake velvet tracksuit.
I then contemplated that they might not be all that ignorant
of there being a standard to be upheld at the hotel. However, because they were
entering a competition to stay in the local five star hotel, it makes you think
they either haven't stayed at one in a long time or at all. So they may not
have gone out too much and so don't have going out clothes appropriate to the
location.
I took this and thought well maybe they could be behind in
their fashion trends and perhaps go with 80s/90s clothes (just to exaggerate),
from the last time they spent the night out somewhere. Putting Ed in a big collared silky purple shirt
with perhaps a contrasting paisley print, black trousers and a big collared
jacket. Still with the chain around his neck and a vest.
Holly would then
be wearing really over the top makeup, a big puffy off the shoulder, ra-ra skirted
dress in a light blue taffeta. With some of her hair up in a high ponytail at
the side of her head with the rest of her hair down. I think it's probably a
good idea I didn't go with this as I'm sure the actress would not have liked
the costume...especially with all the makeup I was planning. Think
stereotypical pantomime dame, and teenager that doesn't know too much about
make up...
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| Design by Katie Pollitt |
In the end I thought
they may not have been able to go to one in the past but that doesn't mean that
they wouldn't want to make an effort about what to wear whilst staying at the
hotel. They may have gone out to buy something especially for the occasion in
order to fit in a bit better, but with touches of their own style.
So with this in mind I still designed Ed to wear an ugly short sleeved shirt, brown trousers and chain,
but with better shoes, when arriving. I then thought having an ugly tie would
fit well for dinner, because at least he's making an effort.
The tie that the actor brought in worked well as you
definitely wouldn't have seen it worn at a five star hotel. That's right your
eyes are not deceiving you. In the photos he is in fact wearing a Star Trek tie
with Captain Kirk on.
At the beginning of the play and Act 2 we are to think that Ed and
Holly are the murder culprits, because of where the murder weapon was found but
also their fiery tempers. Therefore I dressed them in darker colours to portray
their dark personalities, going with purple for Ed and dark red for Holly.
Lighter colours were then worn in their last costumes to
represent their innocence, being wrongly accused of murder.
To help hint at this further for Ed, the actor also had a Star Wars tie with Darth Maul on, so we
decided the Darth Maul tie would be worn as part of his first costume (the bad
guy). He would then switch to the Captain Kirk (good guy) tie with the second
costume accompanied by a short sleeved white shirt and black trousers.
For her second costume Holly switched to a pink and blue floral blouse with a white background, paired with black trousers and the same black heels.
The characters were also married in the play so wedding
rings had to be worn by the actors.
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| Original individual photos by Ashley Foster |
Links:
Thank
you to Ashley Foster for the character portraits and performance photos, if you
want to have a look at his other work or more photos from the adult production please visit his website at http://ashleyfosterphotography.co.uk/ The performance photos I
have used I have cropped down to focus on individuals. Going to his website
will allow you to see original full performance shots.
If
you are interested in the drama group itself that I do the costumes for please
check out their website at http://www.thegrangeplayers.co.uk or their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thegrangeplayers where there are more
photos to look at as well.
Talk to you soon.
~K
