Harriet Amy

This is my most recent full costume creation, designed and made from scratch. Mephistopheles is a sly, cunning and manipulative character from hell who, within my design development, I associated with a locust. Using both my flat pattern cutting and draping on the stand skills, I integrated Elizabethan garment silhouettes (doublet and trunk hose) with more structural insect-like elements such as the shoulder pieces, antenna and wings. The closer you get to the costume, much like an insect, the more detail, texture and patterns you begin to see. A wide range of embroidery techniques were used; from digital embroidery (using an AMAYA machine) on the yoke and hand-beading the detailed locusts on the front, to using the Embellisher and Juki machines on the hose strips before hand sewing all the moss to create a tree-like texture. Each element has a meaning, building on the character’s background, personality and role in the script - further portraying the story to the audience.