Costume Review: Seattle Opera's Semele

On Saturday I went to opening night of Seattle Opera's new production of Handel's Semele. I had some thoughts about the costumes.

Just to set the stage, this is a new production so it is all modern and edgy and has cool projections.

(all photos from seattleopera.org or seattleoperablog.com)

Everyone in Act I (the humans) looked like they were maybe in some sort of space movie. Here are some members of the chorus:

[trailer voiceover] IN A WORLD...

...WITH GEOMETRIC NECK WARMERS

Everything was all pointy and angular and hard edges. Semele's sister Ino was pointiest of all:

The whole gang was on a galaxy quest except hapless Althamas who looked like an adorable hipster who got lost on his way to the artisanal whiskey tasting. 

Things picked up in Act II when the curtain went up and the audience burst into applause at the sight of Stephanie Blythe seated on her throne as Juno, Queen of the Gods. 

YAAAAAS

Points also for Iris who looked fantastic in her leather running suit.

From there we moved to Semele's heavenly "pleasure palace" (I kid you not, that is what it is called) which was all drapey and soft and sensual. So I guess that is why earth was so pointy? To make a contrast? I still wasn't totally on board.

In Act III we met Pasithea. I recognized her costume from promotional materials I received for the opera. Here is how it looked on paper:

And here is how it turned out:

Generally, the dancers in blue body suits and blue face paint made it hard not to think about...

The opera concluded with more of the pointy space chorus and not, as the program promised, the uniting of Ino and hot hipster Althamas. But obviously that part was cut because Stephanie Blythe (who played dual roles) wanted to take her curtain call as Juno rather than as Ino and WHO CAN BLAME HER.

 

As soon as she saw those costumes she made the plan

So overall, it was a bit bizarre.  But the fact is that strange and interesting is always preferable to expected and boring. Because we just had the Oscars, I will use this red carpet analogy: Semele was sort of like the fashion choices of Tlilda Swinton. Sometimes weird, often awesome, but never bland. And that kind of risk-taking is always worthy of applause.

As for me, I wore a new dress that that made me feel like a powerful warrior goddess.

TO THE OPERA HOUSE

I can't show you an actual picture, because much like Semele seeing Jupiter's true form, the fabulousness would probably make you burst into flames. 

I give this post 5 out of 10

Ever have one of those moments where your so irrationally annoyed with something, that you realize that thing must be a pet peeve?

Did I get you?

For me, this moment came recently when I was asked to rate something with an overly-inflated rating scale. Let me explain with an exaggerated example.

Say that you stay in a hotel, take a class, or buy a friendly weasel from your neighborhood ferret salesman. At the end of the experience you are asked to rank it based on the following scale:

1- Very Bad

2- Bad

3- Average

4- Good

5- Very Good

Ok, pretty straight forward. But wait, it is a 10 point scale??

6- Excellent

7- Very Excellent

8- Unbelievably Exceptional

9- This room/educator/customer service experience was so exceptional that everything else in this life will pale in comparison

10- I have entered Nirvana because of this room/educator/customer service experience

What drives me crazy about this is that since they have taken the time to describe each term, I assume that they mean it. I'm someone who doesn't give out perfect scores lightly. Heck, even when I love a movie I'm hesitant rate it five stars on Neflix because I mean, it wasn't Sense and Sensibility good.

So if that thing/person/experience was pretty great, but I think "very excellent" let alone "unbelievably exceptional" is pushing it, I'm going to give 5s and 6s. I also imagine that the person reading the review will be suspicious of anyone who rushed through it and gave all 10s, and will give more credence to the thoughtful person who gave a mix of scores.

But this is NEVER the case. Inevitably you find out that EVEN THOUGH they described 10s and 9s as exceptional in ways that few humans achieve, "all 10s" is expected as the STANDARD and anything less is seen as a failure. And by listing your ferret sales experience as a mere "excellent" you are giving them a black mark on their record which will inevitably lead to their firing.

And this makes me irrationally annoyed.

Hawks Sadness, Fur Fashion, and Pink Chiffon

Last weekend I started a post about the busy, busy week I had just had, and about how much I was enjoying the city-wide excitement about the Seahawks. It felt like Hawks joy was in the air and we were all intoxicated with it. As I was working on the post last Sunday I thought, "I should wait to finish it until after the game so I can mention the result..."

And then Sunday night I was too sad to do anything. Like the rest of Seattle, I spent the last week in reflective, silent contemplation.

Here are some of the pictures I was going to post...

*Snif*

SIGH

*SOB*

But the gloom is starting to lift and we can all return to our regularly scheduled lives. 

Two weeks ago (pre-davastating Super Bowl loss) I had two presentations in three days. Tuesday was member night at MOHAI-- an evening to get our supporters all jazzed about 2015.  I talked about the recent mannequin rotation, an upcoming program, and some fun finds in the collection. It went quite well and lots of interesting people came up afterwards to talk to me. One woman was very excited to hear about my background and where I had gotten my degree. One of her questions was if I had a speciality, a particular era perhaps or a type of clothing?

"Well!" I said enthusiastically, "I specialize in Seattle fashion history!" as I gestured to the museum around me.

And she literally gave me this look:

And the struggle continues.

To be fair, we were not standing in front of one of the costume cases I had just been talking about. As it happened, were standing in the "Idea Lab" in the Bezos Center for Innovation which I haven't spent enough time exploring. While I was waiting to talk, I noticed this fantastic idea proposed by a young visitor:

If you can't read it, it is an idea for a machine called "The Dream Cake Maker." The steps are as follows:
1) Draw picture of dream cake
2) Put in slot
3) Out comes dream cake

If this isn't proof that museums are inspiring places, I don't know what is.

On Thursday I gave a talk about fur and fashion at the Henry Art Gallery. It went well, and most importantly, no one showed up to throw red paint on me. I wasn't advocating for fur, but I wasn't trashing it either. Like most fashion topics, I think fur is really complicated, and you do a disservice when you boil it down to a single story. (I don't own any fur, but I actually got some offers from people to wear their family furs at the talk.  I politely explained that when giving lectures I usually do some hardcore sweating, so being swathed in fur seemed like poor choice. I settled for my beetle wing earrings instead.)

The week post-Seahawks loss was pretty quiet but also very productive. I resolved a really complex FIC and tried to catch up on some new accessions--which meant basking in the glory of this mega fabulous gown:

(Ignore the seams on the mannequin torso.
I didn't have time to "fully" dress this for the photo)

It was designed by Kiki Hart (a New York designer) and sold by John Doyle Bishop.

Over this past year I realized that I need to pull back a little and not accept every single JDB dress that gets offered. Even if someday I do an entire exhibit about him and his shop, we already have too many artifacts to display.  Before the donor sent me a picture I was about to say no, but then I saw it and was like...

It also has a matching pink chiffon cape!

Fur On The Brain

Fur collar from the Henry Art Gallery Collection
collections.henryart.org

Ok guys, I can't spend much time blogging this weekend because I've got this big lecture coming up about fur and fashion in Seattle and...well let's just say it still needs a lot of work. So here are some links to entertain you.

If you are like "Clara talking about fur and fashion?!?! Tell me more!" Go here:

Guest post I wrote for the Henry Art Gallery Blog

Info about my program and how to sign up

"Thanks Clara, but I'll pass. What else is going on in the world of costume and fashion this week?"

Gland you asked! The Miss Universe pageant is happening soon, which means that it is time for the FANTASTICALLY RIDICULOUS PARADE OF NATIONAL COSTUMES. I direct you to this wonderful four-part commentary:

Part I: Bird Women and Show Girls!
Part II: Virgins & Brides!
Part III: Warriors, Goddesses & Queens!
Part IV: Crazies, Lazies, & Try-Hards!

Enjoy!

Goodbye To Weird Limbs

It is done. This week I finished switching all the outfits on the mannequins at the museum, which included removing the weird paper heads and limbs. Besides what I felt was a serious creep factor, the extra parts made these twice-yearly dressings a lot more difficult. I understand why we decided to use them initially, and I gave them a good two-year try. But the heads and limbs were very hard to work with and added an element of uncertainty that ate up a lot of time. 

For example, last time I switched out the 1950s mannequin I had to contend with this:

This is actually one of my favorite little suits in the collection: It is beautifully cut, has an elegant drape of fabric on the back, and was sold by John Doyle Bishop. But on display it looked dour and awkward. After dressing it the first day I had to buy some additional accessories to try to cheer it up, but it still basically looked like this in the case.

This time, we had pre-padded the 1950s mannequin and so at the museum it took only a few minutes to dress and we knew exactly what it was going to look like. I forgot to take a picture of it in the case, but this is the basic idea:

So simple, so elegant! You notice the dress first and not the face! 

I also was able to add artifact shoes to the cases for the first time ever. The old mannequin limbs had feet that were large and stiff. I only used prop shoes because getting something on those feet involved a lot of frustrated stretching and shoving. But now, since we weren't trying to create the illusion of a body, I could just set a pair of artifact shoes on the case floor next to the dress. These are the totally cute shoes I picked:

So now the limbs are all resting peacefully in a strange jumble on a supply shelf. 

The only part that gives me a little pang of sadness is the paper hair for the 1850s woman (at the center of the picture). I think the volunteer and I who worked on it did an awesome job. The 1920s hair turned out pretty nice as well. Creating the paper hair for the mannequins was a particularly fun part of the prep for the new museum, and it is a skill I wouldn't mind developing further. 

There is actually one head n' limbs mannequin still on display. Just around the corner from the 1850s pioneer woman we have the 1860s "Mercer Girl" who is not in a case and is wearing a reproduction dress that we commissioned for the exhibit. Since it is a reproduction, the dress doesn't get changed like the others. It makes sense for her to be more lifelike because the mannequin isn't showing off an artifact, it is representing the idea of a person starting her new life in Seattle. I'm the most proud of the 1850s hair, but I really like the little 1860s snood we gave this one. 

Sorry the photo is so washed out. My camera also really hates those mannequin parts. 

New Year, New Database

Last week, instead of finishing up a bunch of end-of-year projects on my to-do list, I got sick!

Slow Pie To The Face = 

That "I think I'm coming down with something" feeling

On New Year's Eve I went to bed at 8pm, and rang in 2015 the next day by binge-watching Friends.

So this week I ran headfirst into 2015 with a messy desk and a mannequin-dressing area still coated in scraps of polyester batting and wayward bras. But there was no time to tidy up mannequin undies, because the big news this week was our NEW DATABASE. 

Databases are a cause of anxiety for most museum collections staff. You basically HAVE to have some sort of digital way to track your collection unless 1) You have only 10 items and you can see them all from your desk or 2) You are a time traveller from the 1950s and find it perfectly acceptable to use a paper card catalog where "running a search" means looking through every single card. BUT databases don't come cheap, and you can drive yourself crazy trying to pick which one is perfect for your needs. 

Getting this database has been a multi-year process of begging, advocating, researching, discussing, polite arguing, and more begging. At once point, one of the higher ups was like "Why do you you need a new one? The old one seems to be working just fine." JUST FINE??? JUST FINE!?!?!?!? Clearly you don't see us working at our desks every day like...

I'd like to protect the identity of our old database so let me just call it "Chad." Chad was old. Chad was outdated. Chad had lots of features that didn't make any sense. Chad didn't have a global search, so so if you were looking for a specific name or business, you had to search separately in each field that might contain that word. Chad would crash at random times or all the colors on the screen would get weird and it meant he was corrupted and had to be reinstalled. Even the company who made Chad wasn't supporting him any more. 

So we FINALLY have our new database up and running. It is called Proficio (actual name) and it is life changing. I'm still learning how to navigate all its features and I sometimes get frustrated, but it is usually just because Proficio is different and change is hard. When I stop to think about it, I realize the old way was actually a nonsensical Chad work-around, and this new way is better. 

While the data was being transferred from the old to the new, there were a few weeks there where we couldn't use Chad OR Proficio. So in addition to feeling like I didn't finish all my year-end organizational projects, I also have a whole backlog of database work to catch up on. So it is just a few days into the New Year and I already feel way behind. 

Oh well. It is 2015, baby! At least I can pretend to be fabulous and in control.

2014 In Review

There are many things I could write about 2014, but there are few that could be more simply put or more satisfying than this:

These are all the wire hangers that were removed from collections storage in 2014. This pile represents hundreds of garments which are now on better hangers or stored in boxes because of work done this year by me and my incredible team of volunteers.

So here's to all the accomplishments of 2014, and may 2015 be filled with many new and fulfilling endeavors.

Cheers!