Shopping in London

Aimee and I took a day to go to London to get the few final crucial elements of the costumes as well as heading to view the Linbury prize.

Buttons were the crucial thing to buy as we needed authentic leather and horn buttons for the Narrators suit and the soldier's shirt buttons. The members of Button Queen were really helpful in showing us all their choices in a range of colours and assisting with sizes. We came out with the buttons below which I believe will tie in nicely to the colours of the suit and will make it look true to the era.

For the Soldier's buttons we bought two types as he showed us what would have been used, yet these would've been on a darker fabric than our shirt but as they were accurate and only 15p we bought them in case they worked. The alternative was white mother of pearl buttons of a lightly larger size which will still suit the era but will tone in with the shirt better.

We managed to find some fabric to create the straps for the bag, but it will need dying and breaking down. As for the Princess's shoulder clips we bought two options that's shape and colour tied in with the existing silver trimming and still looked fairly antique and regal. We liked each for different reasons, and thought a combination of the two could also be used. We bought 2 choices as we knew it would be difficult to find two antique articles that matched exactly. For the chain for the back of the Princess dress we looked hard for the right type of crystals and finding a set that looked suitably old and antique we then found this is because they have been on the display wall for years. However, we went for these anyway, planning to tea stain and varnish them to make them look suitable.

Our final trip was to the National to rummage through their hire department. Most important to find were the Brogues for the Narrator... only one pair in size 12 were available so looking nicely worn but not too much, so we took them as a back up pair as they will look right. Their slightly reddy colour might actually tone in well with the maroon tie and the red stripe in the suit fabric.

We also took a dress from their broken down Edwardian section for the washer woman as it had nice detailing and will pad out well if we decide to pad a big bra to go beneath for a hugely womanly silhouette. To go with it we took a red shawl, as red is going to be introduced in each of the Devil's characters to show a continuity and relate to the red contacts. We also took a broken down hat for the Cattle merchant which is similar to an authentic photograph I have and collected a WWI tunic and cap for the Soldier which will now be used in the first few scenes and which the Devil will later steal from him.

Reflection:
This was a good experience to learn picking out and identifying an era and character in a costume from a huge selection and really knowing each character well. This is especially necessary with time constraints. This has reitterated to me how crucial it is to have period accessories and final touches, such as buttons, to make them authentically convincing. It was also good to help with my skills on managing a budget as we only had £200.00 for the day and this meant when hiring I had to prioratise which costumes were completely necessary and appropriate for the era out of the selection we had made. I was happy with my choices.