LUMINOUS FIELDS

I created the costume design for Luminous Fields, an interactive video installation designed by Luftwerk.

  Photos thanks to Peter Tsai

PROJECT SUBWAY PRESS

In July I designed 8 runway looks made out of Subway materials like sandwich wrappers and cookie bags, and my designs have gotten a lot of press!

Check out the press release that Subway released, and here are a few links:

Subway Sandwich Wrapper Dresses at 'Project Subway' Show in Chicago on Stylelist.com

Recycled Wrapper Dresses on Trendhunter.com


Subway Recycles Its Packaging Into High Fashion on The Consumerist

PROJECT SUBWAY

I designed 8 runway looks for Subway's Annual Franchise Meeting all created from Subway materials - sandwich wrappers, branded tote bags, soup cups, cookie bags... and to-go salad plates, like the dress above!

Many thanks to my wonderful assistants - Amy Hilber, Kelly Coll, Kelsey Rhodes, and Stephanie McNair!

MANIFEST 2010 STREET TEAM

Photo by Christopher Smith for the RedEye

I created the Spectacle Street Team for Manifest 2010 at Columbia College Chicago, and they were featured in the RedEye today!

Aside from designing their costumes, I created the Spectacle Street Team Ensemble, auditioned the performers, and, with the help of director Ann Boyd and the Spectacle Shop, planned their performances.

For more photos click here!

AFTER DARK AT THE ART INSTITUTE - KONSTANTIN GRCIC - DECISIVE DESIGN

I've designed costumes for Collaboraction at the Art Institute of Chicago's After Dark at the Art Institute - Konstantin Grcic - Decisive Design coming up on Friday, December 11th.




The event was featured on Time Out Chicago's blog. Check out the photos.

AFTER DARK AT THE ART INSTITUTE - MODERN ART WING

I designed costumes for the Art Institute of Chicago's After Dark at the Art Institute with Collaboraction.

The event was on Friday, October 2 - and here's a promo video for the event, featuring the costumes that my assistants and I created.

A very special thanks to Assistants Kelly Coll and Kelsey Rhodes!

PRINTERS' BALL

Columbia College Chicago's Center for Book and Paper Arts hosted this year's Printers' Ball.

Columbia's Spectacle Shop worked closely with the Center for Book and Paper Arts to create an overall look for the event that would greet attendees when they entered the building and stay with them as they roamed the multiple floors the event covered.

I designed these two Rococo style dresses and created them out of paper with the help of Columbia's Spectacle Shop and stitcher Kelsey Rhodes.

Here's a video interview from Amy Guth from ChicagoNow with the two ladies who wore the gowns for the event - Sarah-Jean Benjamin and Mari Provencher.

Paper Dresses at Printers Ball from Amy Guth on Vimeo.

Printers' Ball video featuring the paper gowns
More detail photos to come!

MANIFEST 2009 - RAY BRADBURY COSTUMES

As part of Columbia College Chicago's NEA Big Read grant, I designed costumes for characters from Ray Bradbury's novels, short stories, and film scripts. Below are a few publicity photos from Columbia's Manifest.

My design for Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Dust Witch with Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway.











The Dust Witch from Something Wicked This Way Comes.












Clarisse from Fahrenheit 451

RAY BRADBURY AND MANIFEST 2009

Ray Bradbury was Columbia College Chicago's 2009 Honorary Degree Recipient. In conjunction with Columbia College's National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant, I designed and created 18 costumed characters from Bradbury's novels, short stories, and screen plays with Columbia's Spectacle Build Shop.

These costumed characters participated in Manifest, Columbia College Chicago's end of the year arts festival.

Here is a video interview with Ray Bradbury, featuring many of my design sketches.



Special thanks goes to:
Jennifer Friedrich, Columbia College Chicago Manifest Artistic Director
Joy Dennis, Columbia College Chicago Spectacle Build Shop Manager, Sculptor
Jesarae Richards, Manifest Painter

THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS- BIG READ COSTUMES

Columbia College Chicago won one of The National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read grants this year. As part of Columbia College's program to promote reading, using Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, I designed and created 18 costumed characters from Bradbury's novels, short stories, and screenplays with Columbia College's Spectacle Build Shop. The characters participated in Columbia College's end of the year arts festival - Manifest.

Columbia College's Big Read program and the costumes that I created were featured on the NEA's blog:
'Into the Fire', The Big Read Blog, May 18, 2009

Ray Bradbury is my favorite author, and it was a dream to design and build costumes for the characters from his books!

The characters included:
The Dust Witch from Something Wicked This Way Comes
Mr. Dark from Something Wicked This Way Comes
Will Halloway from Something Wicked This Way Comes
Douglas Spaulding from Dandelion Wine
The Ice Cream Suit from the play of the same name
The Illustrated Man from the short story collection of the same name
Spaceman from a short story in The Illustrated Man
Montag from Fahrenheit 451
Clarisse from Fahrenheit 451
5 other Firemen from Fahrenheit 451
Little Nemo from Little Nemo in Slumberland
Ylla from The Martian Chronicals
2 other Aliens from The Martian Chronicals

And photos will follow shortly!

Special thanks to:
Jennifer Friedrich, Columbia College Chicago Manifest Artistic Director
Joy Dennis, Columbia College Chicago Spectacle Build Shop Manager, Sculptor
Jesarae Richards, Manifest Painter

MANIFEST 2009 - COMMON GROUND

Another sneak peak a few of my designs for Columbia College Chicago's annual Manifest Spectacle Fortuna parade!


I designed these costumes for Common Grounds - Columbia's LGBTA group. The women wear an exaggerated "bubble" dress with a cinched belt, and the men wear "bubble breeches" and a fitted vest with a "bubble" lapel.

Photos thanks to Alexis Ellers
Styling by Jennifer Friedrich, the Spectacle Fortuna Artistic Director
Hair and Makeup by Jennifer Friedrich and Tania Gonzalez

MANIFEST 2009 - MOVED DANCE GROUP

Here is a sneak peak of the costumes I've designed for MOVED - Columbia College Chicago's dance group. They will be participating in Columbia's Manifest Spectacle Fortuna Parade on Friday, May 15th.


As Spectacle Costume Shop Manager at Columbia, I lead a crew of student employees to design and build the costumes for the Manifest Spectacle Fortuna Parade, as well as many other college-wide events. For MOVED, I created a structured paper mache breastplate made out of tissue paper and paired it with a flowy chiffon A-line dress.

Photos courtesy of Alexis Ellers
Styling by Jennifer Friedrich, the Spectacle Fortuna Artistic Director
Hair and Makeup by Jennifer Friedrich and Tania Gonzalez

MANIFEST 2008 VIDEO

I am the Spectacle Costume Shop Manager at Columbia College Chicago. Along with a crew of students I design and build spectacle costumes for college events including new student Convocation, gallery openings, department events, Pride, and Manifest. Manifest is a college-wide urban arts festival that covers Chicago's south loop, celebrating senior and grad student work.

Here is the video of last year's Manifest, including the Spectacle Fortuna parade.



Don't miss Manifest this year - Friday, May 15th!

ABBA - DANCING QUEENS

Chicago's Gay Pride Parade was last weekend - and as Spectacle Costume Shop manager I designed the costumes for Columbia College Chicago's 'ABBA - Dancing Queens' themed float.


After meeting with Columbia's LGBTA advisors, I designed two styles of costumes: a one-piece jumpsuit with wide flowing legs; and a crop top matched with either a mini skirt or hot pants. We decided to keep the costumes all in white with highlights of several of Columbia's school colors. Both styles of costume were further unified by an irridencent cape lined in Columbia's colors.

We had almost thirty Columbia students and staff costumed for the float. And we received an Honorable Mention for our float.

Here are more photos of the float posted online by others:
From Columbia College Chicago
A really great photo of the whole float!
Another float photo with a bit of a close-up of one of the costumes.
And another float photo!

BIZBASH CHICAGO MAGAZINE

Here's the BizBash Chicago article about their Chicago Launch Party event that I costumed last month.

Plus there are some more photos on their website.

BIZBASH CHICAGO LAUNCH PARTY

I designed costumes for Collaboraction for the BizBash Chicago Launch Party. BizBash is an event design publication and they've just opened a Chicago section on their website. The event was all white.

We performed a flash mob dance piece to Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" (click here for Bjork's music video), the same dance piece as at After Dark at the Art Institute - Ed Ruscha. The main difference was in the costumes. I had dressed the After Dark dancers as 1960s gas station attendants - for BizBash the dancers were dressed as the caterers, cooks, and waiters at the event, all in white. There was also a core group of five performers dressed as angelic guests. They created a tableaux at the main entrance.

MANIFEST 2008

'Wire and Ice' dresses with screen tutus and headdress

The theme of this year's Manifest Spectacle was dreams. This gave us a lot of room to design some really creative costumes! Our line up included three 5 foot diameter floating jelly fish, over-sized animals being lead on a leash by children, businessmen with tentacles for feet and hands, and many others.

'Trashabethans' in the parade line up

Within the theme of dreams we wanted to use reusable materials. We used trash bags as the fabric of our Trashabethan costumes. We created our trash bag fabric by adhering trash bags to a muslin backing. The hoop skirts, bustles, panniers, and women's headdresses have a chicken wire and bamboo understructure and are tagged with strips of trash bag. Despite the wire and wood understructure, these costumes are very light and manageable. The men's epaulettes are made in a similar style. The ruffs were made with old Manifest fliers from years past.

The Trashabethan men wore chicken wire and mache deer head mounted on bicycle helmets.

My design sketch of the 'Trashabethan Deer Head Men'

View the Manifest 2008 video!

ARTICLE FROM COLUMBIA COLLEGE'S theLoop

I was featured in theLoop, Columbia College Chicago's newspaper, last week. I work as Columbia College's Spectacle Costume Shop Manager and Costume Designer.

Manifest, Columbia's end of the year celebration, was Friday, May 16th - I'll be posting photos and sketches of the designs I made for the parade.

Chicago's Pride Parade is the next event I will be designing for at Columbia.

Here's the link to the full article:
A Behind-the-Scenes look at Manifest Spectacle Costume Designs

AFTER DARK AT THE ART INSTITUTE - ED RUSCHA

I designed costumes for another After Dark at the Art Institute with Collaboraction and The Art Institute of Chicago.

Ed Ruscha is most well known for his pop iconic photographs.

The exhibit at the Art Institute: 'Ed Ruscha and Photography' focused on his earlier photographs and the photo books he created. Much of his earlier work is comprised of photos of cityscapes, gas stations, parking lots, and city streets.

For the event we created a large scale choreographed dance on the grand staircase to Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet". A dancer dressed as a museum janitor mopped the stairway landing while listening to head phones. 20 gas station attendants appeared and began polishing the railings and scrubbing the staircase. As the refrain picked up, they leaped into dance in a very theatrical Buzbee Berkley style.














I dressed the gas station attendants in neutral and iconic navy blue pants, blue collared shirt, white socks, and black shoes. Each had an orange rag, which was used to polish the stair case, and an orange name badge - all saying "Ed". Many of the women wore orange hair bandannas.

To create focus and to contrast the blues of the gas station attendants surrounding him, I dressed the janitor in tan coveralls and completed the costume with the orange accessories and "Ed" name badge.

Here's the link to Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" music video.

AFTER DARK AT THE ART INSTITUTE - EDWARD HOPPER

Several times a year The Art Institute of Chicago hosts After Dark at the Art Institute - an evening event centered around the current exhibition with live music, drinks, hors' dourves, and theatre by Collaboraction.

The current exhibit is a collection of Edward Hopper's work. Collaboraction created living replicas of some of Hopper's most iconic paintings. I dressed the actors to match the people they were portraying.