Our next project was a design project which allowed me to read and break down the script of William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and design a costume for the main character Helena. The brief for this piece was to create a design in steampunk style for our allocated character. This involved looking in depth at the characters traits as well as looking and their backgrounds and how other characters react to them. This involved research into both the character as well as looking into steampunk which is heavily based on the Victorian era so this was another area that I looked into.

Once designed, we then swapped designs with our piers and then had to recreate their designs. This allowed us to work to someone else’s needs to create their vision. I worked from a design by Callan Mathews of Hippolyta.

I am currently in my 3^rd and final year at the University of Glamorgan studying costume construction for screen and stage. As this is my first post I will quickly cover my work to date and how I feel my time at university has gone.

I came to university after doing an art foundation and specialising in fashion and textiles as well as doing textiles at GCSE so I had a very keen interest in this area already and was ready to get stuck in and learn new skills to expand my knowledge.

The first project we were given was to take an 18^th Century painting and recreate an 18^th Century bodice from Calico as close to the image as possible. This project showed me the basic techniques of flat pattern cutting along with being able to interoperate someone else’s image.  I found this project enjoyable and I was very happy with the results.

We were then allocated a king or queen from throughout British history and we had to recreate their entire outfit from a painting. I was given King George I 1660-1727. This was the first time I had made men’s clothing so this was a difficult task but I was up for the challenge and I felt this project went well. All the costumes were made in calico to give a uniformed look which also made them look slightly ghost like.