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With Halloween coming up, I thought it might be fun to take a look at the costume sketches in the Library's collection. Most of these costumes are a result of the Depression Era Federal Theater Project. According to the notes on the Federal Theater Project Costumes, the collection consists of “over 1,900 designs in color and black and white representing more than 160 productions in 13 cities. The majority of the designs were drawn for New York, NY, presentations. About 60 designers, many of whom signed their work.”
A few of my favorite costumes in the collection include Popeye the Sailor Man, Sleeping Beauty and her Prince, Little Buttercup, and a Brick Wall.
Each of these images show a different approach to the costume design process. Popeye the Sailor Man, Little Buttercup, and a Brick Wall all show the costumes in the creation process. The images include notes like “no dark blue” and hat measurements on the Popeye costume as well as clarification of the brick pattern on the Brick Wall costume. The Brick Wall costume and the Little Buttercup costume also include fabric swatches to give a greater sense of texture and color to the sketch.
The renderings of Sleeping Beauty and her Prince give the appearance of a final draft. They are framed and contain no notes nor swatches on the image itself. The design of the costumes are flowy and use the watercolor technique to add to the illusion of movement in the fabrics. What I find particularly fun about these two images is that they pre-date the Disney adaptation of the story, giving the designers freedom to express these characters without any preconceived ideas or expectations.
Using costumes from this collection could be a fun warm up activity for students this week.
You might ask them to identify which costume from the collection they would wear for Halloween and how they might be able to recreate it. You could also ask them to rank the costumes from “most wearable” to “least wearable.”
There are many more fun costumes in this collection and I will link some more of them below!
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/resource/musihas.200219795.0/?sp=1
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/musihas.200219793/
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/musihas.200219444/
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/resource/musihas.200219305.0/?sp=1
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/resource/musihas.200219334.0/?sp=1
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/resource/musihas.200218852.0?st=image
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/resource/musihas.200218688.0/?sp=1
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Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/resource/musihas.200219985.0/?sp=1
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