By Josie De Leon
In the play “Aida,” the Egyptian Princess Amneris sings,”I would rather wear a barrel, than conservative apparel.” So to live up to these diva-demanding lyrics, BYU students have worked hard behind the scenes to create the glitz and glamour for this year”s musical production.
Audiences enjoy flashy, over-the-top styles in each costume, but what they don”t see are the efforts made to create the look of a single character. Costumes are well thought out and often incorporate symbolic meanings within each design. Costume designing is a collaborative process between the director, other designers and makeup artists to discuss themes, concepts and how the costumes will reflect those ideas.
“Theatrical conventions of all kinds flow in service of telling the story,” said Tim Threlfall, director of “Aida.” “Acting, singing, costumes, lighting and especially the dancing all contribute to the sense of flow.”
For “Aida,” the concept of flow was incorporated into the different styles for the characters and the setting. Costumes had to be designed to parallel the set and allow movement for the extensive dance numbers throughout the show.
“I wanted fabric that moved,” Threlfall said. “I wanted to see some flow on the people, as well as the set.”
Also, Threlfall said he wanted to emphasize the importance of timelessness and universality by using a contemporary look with hints of Egypt and Africa. Through the costumes, he said he wanted to display the worldly look of the Egyptians with their excessive jewelry and style to contrast the earthly and humble Nubian people.
Threlfall has been working with Emilee McVey, a third year graduate student getting her MFA in costume design, who followed her own creative process for designing each costume after discussing her ideas with Threlfall. Threlfall said he had to hurry to keep up with McVey, who was given the assignment last March and has been working on it ever since.
Not wanting to make the show about racial separation, Threlfall said he and the other design members decided to emphasize the stylistic separations between the two groups in the colors and designs.
To accomplish this, McVey did extensive background research about fashion trends today and about Egyptian and Nubian styles. She then discussed ideas and concepts with her director. McVey said she found inspiration for her costume designs in “Aida” from today”s latest fashion trends and during her vacation in Hawaii. Everything from peasant skirts to mid-torso shrugs was incorporated into the designs for the characters.
“I used what I called my ”bible,” which was full of gathered ideas from magazines and other places,” McVey said. “We wanted the look to be very modern and everyday, but with Egyptian designs and flare, so I researched historical Egypt and Nubia.”
After months of collaborative efforts, McVey started to draw rough sketches, modifying the looks of different characters and making small changes. Different deadlines were set to check on the progress of the designs. Finally, ending with final color renderings to display in the costume shop for referencing, workers in the shop started sewing the first week of November.
“Amneris” costumes were probably the most difficult and the most fun to design,” McVey said. “Being the Egyptian princess, she has the most beautiful and intricate costumes in the show.”
Since the show steers away from themes about racial separation, McVey said she wanted the differences to contrast in stylistic separation. For the Egyptians, McVey said she wanted to give them a more structured and materialistic look for a greater contrast over the people they dominate through flashy colors and excessive jewelry. To create the Nubians” look, McVey said she used a more naturalistic approach with different shades of brown.
“The Nubians are living a more natural life so we wanted to give them that natural look,” McVey said. “We used a lot of earth tones and used actual fishnets for their tops.”
For some of the characters” costumes, Threlfall presented the question of why people wear masks to his designers, and wanted to portray those ideas in some of the characters. McVey said she applied this idea to the designs for the pharaoh and the Egyptians.
“We put sunglasses on the Egyptians to give them masks, but to keep them modern,” McVey said. “But for the pharaoh we decided to fully mask him because he is this ominous character seen as a God by his people.”
Costume designs for the Egyptian soldiers were McVey”s first idea. She gave them cargo pants with an attached loincloth and vintage shirts with breastplates. However, designing costumes for the pharaoh was more difficult because designers wanted to make him look modern, but still keep that Egyptian influence, Mc Vey said.
“Pharaoh was the hardest to fit in with the modern world,” she said. “Since he is ill in the musical, we gave him a modified bath robe, sort of a Hugh Hefner-inspired look.”
Another contributing element to the “Aida” costumes was the makeup design. The production managers nominated Crystal Wong, a junior with an open major, as this year”s head makeup artist. Wong said that collaborating with the costume designers and the director was also an important part of her process. Ideas and concepts taken from the director were incorporated into her creative development. Inspirations for different makeup designs were done through lots of research, Wong said. Other students, in an advanced makeup class at BYU, were also assigned by Wong to help the actors with their makeup and to fulfill hours for the class.
“We played off of different concepts that I looked at in books,” she said. ”I pulled a lot of ideas from a book by artist Kevin Aucoin.”
The makeup, like the costumes, contrasted to emphasize the stylistic separation between different individuals and groups. For Aida and the pharaoh, both cast members are airbrushed to create a glowing effect to distinguish the importance of their roles from other characters in the play.
“Behind each costume and makeup choice is a stylistic representation of something deeper within the musical,” McVey said. “I hope the audience likes what we”ve done with it.”
