Nestled away in the basement of the Hopkins Center is what may be one of the College's best kept secrets -- the costume shop.
"The costume shop is always a stop on the prospectives' tour,"
said Carla Richters, costume shop manager. "But few people actually make it down for a visit."
Surrounded by bolts of fabric, mannequins, sewing machines and ironing boards, students and employees work to design and put together the costumes for the College's major performances.
Just outside the construction area of the costume shop is a dye room/laundry area, "where the first steps of actual construction begin," Richters said. "We wash and dry fabrics, and dye them to the appropriate colors."Located in the dye room are a washer, dryer, a wooden drying rack, a cupboard filled with a plethora of chemicals and dyes and a gleaming steam-jacketed dye vat.
"In the dye room, we do the same things that people do in the chem lab," Richters said. "We work with the same chemicals that they do in the lab when we dye fabrics here."
"Before we start, we have to decide whether to wash the fabric or whether to have it dry cleaned," Richters said. "And after that we have to do the maintenance for the show."
Richters said every time the costumes are worn on stage, the costume shop has to clean them.
"We wash any part of the costume that touches the skin between performances," Richters said. "And if there are two shows on the same day, we wash the parts between the shows."
The costume shop is also responsible for ironing the costumes between performances.
Just across the hall from the dyeing area is one of the costume shop's two storage areas. Inside hundreds upon hundreds of costumes -- dresses, suits, coats, shirts, pants, bathrobes and body padding -- hang on racks, organized by time period.
Accessories from the same period are stored above the clothes racks.
"We put the accessories above the costume so we can pull an entire costume from the same aisle," Richters said.
The far wall is lined with shoes and boots in a myriad of colors and styles. All jewelry is stored in a cupboard along the wall.
Richters said she basically knows all of the costumes in the storage area.
"The first thing I did when I got here was to touch every costume," Richters said. "I folded everything and judged it so we could sell what we didn't like."
The costume shop's other storage area, known as Middle Kingdom, is located at the far end of the hall. The stairs leading up to Middle Kingdom are narrow and steep, so steep that one must walk backwards to descend.
"This is where we put things that we don't use very much or things that are very precious to us," Richters said. "Some of those things are beaver hats from the 1860s and Italian straw hats."
Stored in Middle Kingdom are hats, peasant wear, suits of armor, tail coats, tuxedos, military wear and ethnic garments.
"We also store all the patterns that we make here in a filing cabinet so that we can come back and reuse them," Richters said.
Richters said she walks the Middle Kingdom all the time to check for flooding since some articles have been damaged by flooding in the past.
Also stored in Middle Kingdom are real period garments which date back as far as 1840.
"We use these garments for study," Richters said. "We can't put a real garment on stage, because it is too fragile and too small."
Instead, Richters said designers take the costumes out and look at how they were originally made.
For instance, designers might examine animal bones once put in women's clothing to give the garments shape and support.
In the hallway between the Middle Kingdom and the costume shop are several dressing rooms.
"This is where we do the actual fitting of the garments," Richters said.
Dressing tables dominate one side of each room. The other half of the room is empty, so actors and actresses can stand in track lights that approximate stage light and the designers can see what colors look good. Along one wall is a place for the costumes and ditty bags to be hung.
The ditty bags are used for any small items that the actors may need to keep track of, as well as for storage of items pulled from stock when the play is still in its early stages, Richters said.
"Each actor and actress has his or her own dressing table," Richters said. "We put their makeup on pallets on the table so they don't have to share with each other."
According to Richters, the costume shop is "dressing" eight shows this term. Among those with outfits designed by the costume shop are "Make Sense Who May," "Dancing at Lughnasa," the Frost Plays and the spring dance concert.
"This is really a pretty normal spring," Richters said. "May tends to be a little nuts because a lot of seniors are working on their projects, and we're doing troubleshooting for other departments."
Richters said that the work load in the costume shop is generally lighter during the Winter term because it is shorter.
Richters said her main job is to delegate work in the shop and to allocate resources.
"I also explain jobs to the students and teach them how to sew" and "design the dance concert and the Feast of Song" costumes, she said.
According to Richters, a faculty member designs the shop's main offerings for each term, and student designers are allowed to design the remainder.
"The costume shop becomes a laboratory for students, where they can take what they're learning in their costume design and production courses and use it in a practical way," said Drama Professor Margaret Spicer, the faculty costume designer.
Spicer said she designs three productions or less each year for the drama department and mentors students who are doing projects in design work.
"If we have students who are advanced enough and ready enough to design a production, we are thrilled to give them the opportunity here," Spicer said.
Spicer said much research is involved in designing costumes.
"We look at photographs, paintings and original works of art from the time period to determine what people wore," Spicer said.
She said she also reads books about the social history of the period of a play and reads scripts thoroughly before meeting with the directors.
"I need to have a basic knowledge of art and architecture of the time so that I can work with the scenery director and make sure everything is aesthetically pleasing," Spicer said.
Richters said once the designs are finished, it is the rest of the costume shop's job to make the designs three dimensional.
"We realize the designs," Richters said. "That may mean draping them on a mannequin, making a pattern, looking at historical dress, shopping for clothing for a modern show or pulling an article of clothing from stock."
Spicer said because the costume shop can only build 10 costumes per show, design inevitably becomes a process of taking a concept and going to storage, seeing what is there and melding the old and new ideas.
"Each production is special, though," Spicer said. "We can never use the exact same costume twice. The directors have different interpretations, and the costumes don't always fit the actors."
"The purpose of design is to express the character that is wearing it," Spicer said. "We can use line, texture, and color to change those costumes to fit the person."
Richters said most of the supplies used in the costume shop are mail-ordered. Just recently she ordered plastic lobsters from New York City for the show "Searching for Mis Angeles."
"Someone in my position is only as good as her catalog supply is," Richters said. "We have to know where to get things for the designers."
Once the materials arrive, the costume shop oversees the fitting sessions. Initially, costumes are made out of muslin, a cotton fabric, to test out ideas and check for fit, Spicer said.
"Fabric is simply too expensive to make mistakes on," Spicer said. "We use the muslin so we can mark on it and cut into it if we need to."
"At that point in time, it is still an idea in progress," Spicer said. "We might decide to make the collar wider or the hem longer to get the proportion and balance right."
Students play an important role in the construction and sometimes design of costumes.
The costume shop has between two and four paid student employees each term. Other students volunteer in the shop.
"I always had an interest in clothes," said Shan Hu '98, a volunteer in the costume shop. "In the Fall term I took a basic design class and I loved it so much that I learned to sew in the costume shop."
"I really get a lot out of working here," Hu said. "They teach me how to do all kinds of things, regardless of whether I'm working on a project for myself or for them."
Charles Peden '98 began volunteering in the costume shop last fall and said working in the shop is a great way to create.
"It's not at all like what you do academically," Peden said. "It's much more satisfying because you are doing something concrete with your hands, and you don't necessarily get that same satisfaction from writing a 20-page paper."
Carolyn Wang '99, a paid student employee in the costume shop, said she sewed a lot at home and said she wanted to get a job doing something she enjoyed.
"I like working here a lot because they teach us how to do all kinds of things, including draping," Wang said.
Each student works on projects suitable for their ability. On Friday, Wang was finishing a men's jacket for the dance recital, and Peden was putting together sleeves.
Peden said although his career plans have nothing to do with designing or building costumes, he really enjoys working in the costume shop.
"It provides a heart, a focus, for those who might not have found" one, Peden said.
