{Crying Gold}

I just found the costume I made last year on my college website! Ok, ok, so I googled my own name, but I haven't done that for a very very long time. Check out my fellow classmates' creations here. We made our designs based on characters from the medieval play of Everyman, and then put on a costume parade at the National Gallery this past May. It got pretty hectic before that final happy day, probably because a week before the show I decided to remake/weld the skirt and shoulder panels from copper rods instead of the plastic I had used initially. In the last photo, i've got a hideous plaster on my arm where I gouged out a hole with a random piece of sharp protruding metal in the workshop. Brilliant.

I also want to say THANK YOU to my model and friend, Lisa, for sustaining many months of prodding, tight corsetry, heavy armour and of course her favorite - the latex mask. All in all, a cumbersome ordeal, but i am ever grateful.

Spraying the 'bodice' breast plate, after having removed all feeling from my fingertips by spreading hot plastic to create the 'hammered metal' look. Trust me, there are more efficient techniques out there.

Lisa models my second attempt at the hip panels, which I then covered with two layers of silver and black metal-shot organza.

The mask was a cast of Lisa's face and painted to resemble a death mask with liquid gold pouring out as tears. Macabre, I know.

Strolling out in Trafalgar Square - happy and relieved (perhaps due to the insane painkillers I took to treat a sudden back spasm that had me twitching on the floor moments before the show). I was pretty out of it for a few days after!

Thanks for reading...