This journal has been set up as a way of making my work viewable online. Feel free to browse through my work, either by scrolling down the page to see the most recent entries or by using the 'tags'. The tags are listed to the right and will allow you to see all the entries on one subject eg. 'corsetry' or 'design' so you can narrow your search a little.

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Rachel Midgley

My major project during 3rd year at university was a module called Independent Specialist Skill (ISS), this was basically a making project in which we had to study and develop a new skill. I started off choosing period millinery and focusing on the hoods worn by women in the tudor period. The project then took on something of a life of it's own and became a full women's costume, including hood. We had to give our costume some context and choose a character for it, so I chose Mistress Page from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.

I then designed and made the entire costume, consisting of linen smock, linen and taffeta petticoat bodies/boned kirtle, taffeta gown with fur cuffs and a taffeta covered french hood. The hood and neckline of the gown are beaded. The finished designs for the costume are still at university having been handed in for marking, but below are the line drawings I did of each garment and several photographs of the finished costume being worn by my model, Heather Cameron. The patterns I used for the petticoat bodies/boned kirtle and the hood were based on and adapted from patterns found in Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies' excellent book The Tudor Tailor. 
 

As part of my university course I did a work placement with a company called Medieval World. I worked in their costume deprtment with their costume maker; Helen Shacklady. I learnt a huge amount from Helen and am very thankful to her and the rest of the company for giving me the opportunity for such an enjoyable and inspiring two weeks. I got a real taste of what it was like to work in a real making environment and the restrictions that come with it, especially in terms of things like budget and maintenance requirements of costumes for the wear and tear of daily re-enactments.

During my placement I worked on costumes being made for use at Warwick Castle in their summer events. Below are some photographs of things I worked on, a hood to be worn as part of the barding on a knight's horse and a leather coif to be worn by the character of the Earl Of Warwick.

As part of my 3rd year at university I was Costume Designer on a university production of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's play The Front Page. The play is a quick fire comedy with a heavy dose of satire and social comment. It is set in a 1920s Chicago Press Room and centres around a group of reporters. The production was directed by John Ramage, with Set Design by Gillian Argo, Lighting Design by Lauren McCullough, Sound Design by Andy Gannon and Wardrobe Supervision by buttonssking . The show ran for five performances between the 5th and 9th of May 2009, at the Churchill Theatre in Edinburgh.

The concept behind the designs was for them to tie in with the colour scheme of the set, which drew inspiration from the work of painter/photographer Charles Sheeler. The costumes were to be period correct in shape and fabric, but with a slightly stylised colour scheme that made use of grey tones with hints of colour to help link groups of characters together. I have only included a large 'group scene' cstume plate that only shows several of my original costume plates for the show, as it would take up too much room to show each one individually! From left to right the characters shown are: Mayor, Sheriff Hartman, Diamond, Mrs Grant, Peggy, Hildy, Walter, Murphy, Bensinger, McCue, Endicott, Woodenshoes.


Below are a selection of production photographs from the technical and dress rehearsals of the show, I was very pleased with the way the costumes looked and am very grateful to the brilliant wardrobe team who put in such a lot of hard work on them.

 
 

A long overdue post with some photos of my Sewing & Construction project from second year of university. For this project we had to choose someone else's plate (produced for their Research & Design Project) and make it.

I chose a 1920s dress, designed by Seonaid Frew, for the character of Nora Helmer in a production of Ibsen's A Doll's House. I had not worked on anything from the 1920s before, so it was a period I wanted to explore and the design would also give me an opportunity to further my knowledge of period underwear construction as well. The finished outfit consists of a set of white cotton combinations trimmed with ribbon, a silk satin underbust, hip-length corset with 6 suspenders, seamed stockings and a short sleeved, belted, knee length, silk crepe dress with beaded and applique detailing on the front, neck, hem and sleeves.

In these photos the costume is being modelled by buttonssking 

 

Bye Bye Birdie! was the last show I worked on in my second year of university. The show was a period musical set in 1950s America and centred on the events surrounding teen idol and heartthrob singer Conrad Birdie's visit to the small town of Sweet Apple, Ohio. The show was directed by Rita Hayworth with Emma Smalley as Costume Designer and JJ Adams as Set Designer. Both set and costume had a theme of vibrant, solid colours with influences from pop art and comic book artwork.

I worked as a wardrobe assistant for the production period and worked on several of the costumes alongside other people, as well as making Margie's dress (green and white with shoulder straps in pictures), Mrs MacAfee, Mrs Merkle and Mayor's Wife's blouses (also seen in photos), fatsuit for Mr MacAfee and Kim's Ed Sullivan Show Dress.

Over the summer I had the great pleasure of working with Leyland Methodist Adult Music and Drama Group on their production of Summer Holiday. I acted as both the designer and supervisor for costume and was responsible for making, buying and sourcing the costumes. The show ran for four performances between the 17th and 20th of September and was completely sold out every night. The show was directed by Paul Duckworth with Jo Duckworth as musical director and John Hutchinson as set designer.

For this show I wanted to keep the costumes true to the period it was originally set in (late 1950s/early 60s) and also express the fun and exuberance of the music. It was a big challenge and I enjoyed every second of working on the show, from designing the plates to performing the quick changes on the night.

This is a selection of photos taken either by me or by John Hutchinson during the final two dress rehearsals. For the design plates I produced for the show please see this post.

 

Over the summer I have had the great pleasure of working with Leyland Methodist Adult Music and Drama Group on their production of Summer Holiday. I acted as both the designer and supervisor for costume and was responsible for making, buying and sourcing the costumes. The show ran for four performances between the 17th and 20th of September and was completely sold out every night. The show was directed by Paul Duckworth with Jo Duckworth as musical director and John Hutchinson as set designer.

For this show I wanted to keep the costumes true to the period it was originally set in (late 1950s/early 60s) and also express the fun and exuberance of the music. It has been my biggest challenge and, I feel, my greatest achievement to date and I enjoyed every second of working on the show, from designing the plates to performing the quick changes on the night.

This post contains a selection of the plates I produced for the show, to see production photos of the costumes featured in these plates please see this post.

 

This is a long overdue post I have been meaning to do since Novemeber 2007, when I completed this project. It was done as part of my degree and involved a 3 day workshop with milliner Jeanette Sendler. During and after this we had to make two hats; a 'make do and mend' 1940s hat and a 1840s bonnet.

The 1940s hat was made using a secondhand felt hat which we reshaped and decorated, mine is navy blue felt with cream grosgrain ribbon edging and is decorated with navy velvet, a cream feather and a corded button. The 1840s bonnet was made from scratch and is covered in brown shot taffeta, lined with corded cotton lawn and decorated with gathered strips of these two fabrics.

As part of this project we also had to create two characters who might have worn our hats, the characters' lifestyles and personality had to influence our design choices. Here are the sketchbook pages showing my two characters; Effie (1840s) and Ella (1940s).

 These are a selection of plates from the designs I did for a series of four Greek Tragedies being put on at The Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow. I designed for twoof them, Trojan Women and Medea. The show had a very limited budget and production period, so I had to be careful to limit my designs so they were realistically possible with these limits. Due to problems with the university and facilities, these designs were sadly never realised, despite the best efforts of me, the other designer Seonaid Frew, and supervisor buttonssking.

The concept for Trojan Women (directed by Stef Smith and Ross Mackay) was based on cabaret clubs from the 1920s and 30s, with all the women being showgirls at the club, and the men being either militia soldiers or patrons of the club.



The concept for Medea (directed by Claire Todd) drew inspiration from the colours and shapes in the work of artist Gustav Klimt. These colours were used to symbolise Medea's exoticism and magical abilities, so those characters with a stronger link to her had more of these colours and shapes incorporated into their designs, and vice versa.

These are a set of a 8 costume plates I did as part of my Reseatch & Design project in 2nd year of university. I chose to design for Sheridan's play, The Rivals. My theoretical concept for the play centred around the play being staged as a promenade performance in the Museum of Fashion, Bath. I took inspiration from the architechture and colours in the decor in the museum for the colours and textures of my designs.

The plates themselves were done using a mixture of fineliners, pen and ink, pencil crayons and watercolour. From top left they show Sir Anthony Absolute, Captain Jack Absolute, Lydia Languish, Mrs Malaprop, Julia Melville, Bob Acres, Lucy and Faulkland.

 

This was a personal project I started in the summer of 2005 and finally got finished in 2006. I based the pattern on one of those given in The Tudor Tailor book by Jane Malcolm-Davies and Ninya Mikhaila. The style is based on the bodies worn by the funeral effigy of Queen Elizabeth I.

They are made up in red and black shot taffeta, lined with black cotton canvas and bound in cream velvet binding. All the channels are machine stitched in cream linen thread.

As part of the first year of my degree I completed a workshop and project about the use of colour, pattern and texture. As well as lots of dyeing and applied decoration techniques, I was shown various methods of distressing and breaking down a garment. I then had to use several of these to break down a garment to a set brief.

My brief was a tee shirt worn by a modern soldier with a gunshot wound. I distressed the garment to show wear and tear, added mud spatter and sweat patches under the arms, as well as the actual bullet hole.

 

These plates were done in Autumn 2005 for my university interviews. For my interview at Queen Margaret University I was asked to do 6 plates for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I did two plates for each of Titania and Puck, and one each of Theseus and Hippolyta.

We were asked to come up with a concept of our own, so I drew inspiration from two main sources, firstly, the illustrations of Arthur Rackham and John Bauer and secondly the European folk costumes I had seen on recent holidays to Norway and Sweden.

At present I have only two of the plates available, but will be uploading the other four when I can get a better scan of them.