#Susan Hilferty

[taylorswiftstyle]

"I Can See You" music video | July 7, 2023

Susan Hilferty custom dress (Speak Now Tour)

Reem Acra custom dress (Speak Now Tour)

Susan Hilferty custom dress (Speak Now Tour)

Colette Dinnigan dress (Speak Now Tour)

Jenny Packham dress (Speak Now Tour)

Marchesa custom gown (Speak Now Tour)

Mandalay dress (Speak Now Tour)

Alice + Olivia custom dress (Speak Now Tour)

J. Mendel dress (2011 People’s Choice Awards)

Temperley London dress (Speak Now album photoshoot for “Mean”) 

Lulu’s dress (“Mine” music video)

Valentino gown (Speak Now Tour)

Reem Acra gown (2011 American Music Awards)

This is not the first time that I've had to make a post like this. If you've been around long enough, you'll recall the masterpost I made of all the archival outfits seen on past Taylor's in the "LWYMMD" music video.

This was such a lovely trip down memory lane!

[thecommoncurator]

chill day ✨

[willstafford]

It's not easy being green

WICKED Birmingham Hippodrome, Wednesday 6th March, 2024 One of the most successful musicals of all time is on the road again and it’s a real treat to be able to catch it during its stay at Birmingham’s Hippodrome.  If you’ve seen it before, you’ll recall the emotional highs and lows of the story, and the green-faced one belting out ‘Defying Gravity’, but perhaps like me you’ll be reminded just…

[finding-w0nd3rland]

Concept art to finished costume comparison of the Courtier costume for the original run found on the Wonderland on Broadway site

(Art made by Susan Hilferty)

[flurryheaven]

2023 Tony Awards Nominations - Best Costume Design of a Musical

Some Like it Hot - Gregg Barnes Parade - Susan Hilferty Lerner & Loewe's Camelot - Jennifer Moeller KPOP - Clint Ramos and Sophia Choi & Juliet - Paloma Young New York, New York - Donna Zakowska

Updated: Congratulations to Gregg Barnes.

[patina-millers-biceps]

I do not need the special Wicked themed dresses from Hill House Home I do not need the special Wicked themed dresses designed with Susan Hilferty I do not need THEM

[princesssarisa]

What are the clothing styles of Elphaba and Glinda?

Even though I've only seen this musical once onstage so far, I've been looking through production photos and articles on the costuming just so I can answer this question well.

Elphaba clearly favors plain, conservative, dark-colored clothes at every stage in her life. But as she goes through her journey of becoming "wicked," her aesthetic changes from "drab, nerdy schoolgirl" into "sleek, sophisticated lady."

When she first appears in college, she wears a simple dark blue turtleneck sweater, calf-length skirt, blazer jacket, and knitted cap, with tall brown boots. The school colors of Shiz University are dark blue and white, so make Elphaba and Glinda stand out and highlight the contrast between them, Glinda wears all white, while Elphaba wears all blue. When she attends her first party at the Ozdust Ballroom, she wears a stark, sleeveless dark blue party dress, and the pointy black hat Glinda gave her which becomes her signature hat from then on. Back at school, after her makeover by Glinda, she replaces her heavy blue blazer with a form-fitting white jacket. When she first visits the Emerald City, she wears a high-necked, ankle-length, button-down black dress in an Edwardian design, very similar to the dress worn by Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West. In "Defying Gravity," Glinda puts a black cloak around her to warm her, which completes the classic "Witch of the West" look. Throughout Act II, however, when she fully becomes the Witch of the West, she wears her most iconic dress. Black, floor-length, high-necked, long-sleeved, and still in a conservative Edwardian style, but much more glamorous than any of her earlier costumes, with a subtle yet wide assortment of patterns, textures, and colors woven into it (chiefly purple, red, and teal). The costume designer Susan Hilferty wrote that she meant for this dress to evoke the earth – raw, jagged, rocky earth, but with gemstones shining through it. At the very end, though, she wears a simple, low-cut, floor-length black dress when she leaves Oz with Fiyero after faking her death.

Glinda's costumes are just the opposite of Elphaba's – light, frilly, flouncy, and bubbly. Although one similarity (possibly symbolic?) is that in Act II, she favors the color blue like Elphaba did in Act I, just in a much lighter shade. Her aesthetic also changes from girlish and cute in Act I to more glamorous and womanly in Act II.

Her schoolgirl outfit is a short-sleeved white blouse and vest, a lacy knee-length white skirt, and white buckled high heels (she loves high heels), with a white travel jacket and white tam o'shanter hat at the beginning. To the Ozdust Ballroom party and in "Popular," she wears a frilly, sleeveless, knee-length pink dress and pink heels. In her first trip to the Emerald City, she wears a similar sleeveless, knee-length dress, but in yellow. Then in Act II, her costumes upgrade to reflect her new, high-status public role. Her "Thank Goodness" costume is an elegant yet conservative (although still slightly quirky and Oz-like) suit dress of ice blue and mint green silk, with a tiny white hat, inspired by the 1940s fashions worn by Eva Peron to evoke Glinda's similarity to Eva as a political figurehead. To her engagement ball, she wears a sleeveless, sequined, pale green ballgown with a full, 17th century-inspired skirt that looks like flower petals, and a silver tiara with a flower design. Finally, she wears her iconic, elaborate "bubble dress": a short-sleeved, bare-shouldered, large-skirted ice blue gown like that of a classic fairy princess, all covered in tiny crystal sequins, with another petal-like design for the skirt, and with a silver tiara shaped like glittering stars on her head.

The differences in Elphaba and Glinda's costumes is mirrored by the design of their college dorm room too, with Elphaba's plain patched-quilt bed and shelves of books vs. Glinda's frilly purple bed and shelves of designer shoes. By the way, that dorm room set reminds me of the difference between Margaret Hamilton's dressing room and Billie Burke's on the set of The Wizard of Oz. Allegedly, the studio treated them almost as if they really were the Witch of the West and Glinda; Billie Burke had a beautiful pink and blue dressing room, while Margaret Hamilton was just given a plain, ugly canvas tent.

[festivating]

These are such cool additions! I REALLY love the contrast in their school uniforms, especially since later on Elphaba wears one of Glinda's white jackets after they become friends :)

The bit about One Short Day is so interesting because those roles change in act 2. The bubble dress is very puffy and airy and cloud-like and Glinda is the one giving the vibe she's from the sky, but Elphaba's act 2 dress looks like parts of the earth put together, she's the one that's grounded. They are once again opposites, but Glinda wears blue (one of Elphaba's colors) and Elphaba wears the hat and cape Glinda gave her, so this time even as opposites they are present in each other's costumes.

Here is the amazing Susan Hilferty talking about it, very cool insight into her thought process for designing the costumes!

i do mourn glinda's wardrobe more than anything else the movies could possibly change. every one of her costumes in the musical is so deliberate and there's so much visual storytelling done with them. her skirts get progressively longer as the show goes on because she's growing up. she goes from warm colors to cool colors because she shifts from naive and sunny to melancholic and serious. her accessories go from little purses to actual jewelry and her wand and tiara as her "public persona" solidifies. green and blue are incorporated to signify her relationship with elphaba. you can trace her whole character arc with just the way she dresses.

in the movie she just wears pink. all the time. the same shade of it. a bit of lavender if we're lucky :/

[mwalt3034]

FAS3003 - BLOG

For the final project of my fashion and textiles foundation year we have been tasked with creating either a sketchbook or 1xA3 folder containing research, samples, development ideas with a final range of ideas or large scale outcome. We have been asked to choose any topic of which we have a passionate personal interest. 

I started by brainstorming potential topics that I am interested in, including film, fairy tales, nature, flowers and theatre. I then narrowed it down to film and theatre costume with an interpretive period theme and mind mapped some of my favourite pieces to get an idea of the type of samples and outcome I would like to create. Some of these included the costumes from films such as ‘Mirror Mirror’ (2012) by designer Eiko Ishioka, ‘Cinderella’ (2015) by designer Sandy Powell, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (2010) by designer Colleen Atwood and ‘Emma’ (2020) by designer Alexandra Byrne. I also gathered some images from theatre productions and movie musicals such as ‘Moulin Rouge’ (2001) by designers Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie, ‘Wicked’ theatre costumes by designer Susan Hilferty and ‘Six’ theatre costumes by designer Gabriella Slade. 

After some consideration I decided to focus on ‘Moulin Rouge’ due to my strong interest in set and costume in both film and theatre. I particularly like the use of materials, fabrics, embroidery, patterns and colour palette that are a strong element of all Moulin Rouge productions as well as the real Parisian location itself. I would also like to look into the history of the Moulin Rouge to gain a better understanding of how it has changed over time, and how it has become what it is today.

[bobdobalina]

Curtain call at Verdi’s La Traviata, The Metropolitan Opera, November 4, 2022

Starring Nadine Sierra (Violetta), Stephen Costello (Alfredo) and Lusa Salsi (Germont). Production created in 2018 by Michael Mayer, with sets by Christine Jones, costumes by Susan Hilferty, and lights by Kevin Adams.

Funny how the iPhone camera turns images into these artsy little painted shapes when you zoom in.

[wri0thesley]

devastated about the loss of my favourite galinda costumes tho btw. the bubble dress not being blue. her adorable little cream shiz uniform. the yellow dress for one short day. looking like we’ve lost her engagement gown and her asymmetric thank goodness suit too… truly suffering. susan hilferty’s costumes are SUCH an iconic wicked moment for me i am Sad

Hey Nat! Was wondering if you saw the trailer for Wicked! (Well it’s more of a teaser since it’s so short :p )

Wicked was the musical that got me into musicals when I was 12 and when I say I was OBSESSED with it you have no idea. It was the first musical I saw live and it was on my 16th birthday! While there are many other musicals I love, this one is near and dear to my heart.

I feel like there are some GREAT movie musicals out there (i.e Hairspray and Little Shop of Horrors) and I hope this will be one of them! I am afraid of non musical fans going into it thinking it’s not a musical (and thinking it’s a Cruella-like movie, though the book is way older than the majority of “let’s look at the villain in a sympathetic light” stories) and panning it because of that. Hollywood likes to make movie musicals but keep the musical part secret to draw in everyone : / I might have to gatekeep otherwise (Jk jk)

i did!! i remain . . . sceptical of ariana grande’s casting (she was easily the worst part of hairspray live and i personally prefer my galindas with a much more legit style; also something about her speaking voice puts me on edge scdgd) but if nothing else i am hoping the costumes and the set will be gorgeous!!! i feel pretty middle of the road about wicked; i’ve seen it three times but i wouldn’t class it as a personal fave, though haz has quite a lot of emotional attachment to it!!! i am trying to be cautiously optimistic!!!

[taylor-swiftfacts]

[finding-w0nd3rland]

Concept art of Chloe for the original run by Susan Hilferty found on the Wonderland on Broadway site

[professorpski]

Seductive Slink in Present Laughter

Noel Coward’s play Present Laughter is a comedy about an egomanical theater actor written in 1939, first presented in 1942, revived ever since. In 2017, Kevin Kline played the lead, who has to fight off the women, and won a Tony Award. Then PBS filmed the play for Great Performances which is where I saw it. Theater costumes are always intriguing because they need to quickly convey information about the characters.

When Cobie Smulders appears playing the wife of his producer, we know she is up to something. She turns up very late one night claiming to have lost her latch key and make the most of the dress created by costume designer by Susan Hilferty. It is long, black, bare, cut on the bias, and trimmed with diamond clips at the shoulders. In the Broadway production, Hilferty used an actual Madeleine Vionnet dress in blue.The black version has the same seductive spirit. Vionnet is best known for her bias-cut clothing from the 1930s. Cutting woven fabric on the bias allows slippery threads to slide past each other creating elasticity. While a blouse front cut on the bias may only make it fit better, and a short skirt cut on the bias will have a certain sha-boom when you walk, a silk dress cut on the bias is all slink all the way down. 

You can see the dress in action in this clip: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/noel-cowards-present-laughter-cobie-smulders-kevin-kline-noel-cowards-present-laughter/7573/ 

To learn more of Hilferty and her designs, go here: https://www.playbill.com/article/tony-nominated-designer-susan-hilferty-reveals-the-secrets-behind-the-vintage-costumes-of-present-laughter