For my Final Major Project, I designed and created a Coral Dancer costume for a ballet version of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. I wanted to create a pancake tutu for my final project as I have always been fascinated by them. I made sure to do as much research as possible to fully understand tutu construction and use all of this information to make mine as accurate to a professionally made tutu as possible. Construction has always been my favourite element of creating costumes and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of making this tutu as it improved my accuracy and challenged me. I designed for a corps de ballet dancer and wanted the costume to take inspiration from coral forms. I used print and embroidery techniques to dye fabric and explore textures through fabric manipulation and beadwork. It was exciting to broaden my understanding of print and dyeing techniques and mix these with embroidery to create my desired finish. I hope to take forward all of the skills I have learnt throughout my degree into my professional life and work and hope to work within theatres building on my costume construction and textiles skills.
