The Little Mermaid - Walt Disney Studios 2023
For the newly imagined remake of The Little Mermaid, I was asked to provide some samples the embroidery for Ariel's wedding dress whilst I was already working on the production as a costume maker. I was then asked to create the embroidery for the dress and also a few pieces for other characters including boots for Vanessa and floral embroidery for Rosa.
See more: The Little Mermaid
Wedding dress photo from Todd Kingston, Vanessa's boots picture Jessica Alexander and Rosa's dress picture Emily Coats.
Queen Charlotte, A Bridgerton Story
For this new Bridgerton spin off about the young Queen Charlotte, I provided onsite machine embroidery services. Most embroidery I did was done for King George III costumes, however I also got to embroider both Queen Charlotte's wedding gowns as we can see in the poster and sneak peek. On top of the machine embroidery Beth Parry & Hattie McGill hand embroidered beads, gold work and sequins and added crystals.
See more: Queen Charlotte
Production photo credit: Netflix
Fidelio - Royal Opera House
For the new 2020 Royal Opera House production of Fidelio, designed by Rainer Sellmaier, I was asked to provide the waistcoat embroidery for the character Florestan performed by Jonas Kaufmann. It is based on the design from Otto van Randwijck, however I have redesigned a lot to make it neater and the colours have changed a great deal. All the French Knots are hand embroidered on top of the machine embroidery, as it is screened in cinemas too so great detail was required. The waistcoat has been constructed in house by the tailoring department and then got broken down. On the second and third photo you can see the waistcoat in its full glory. This is the cover waistcoat which I got to construct myself, including his breeches and also other costumes for the chorus.
See more: Fidelio – Royal Opera House
Production photo credit: Bill Cooper
Building a library
As the first Stephanie Arditti Bursary recipient from MGCfutures, I was able to explore a career in digital embroidery as a new learned skill in my final year at Wimbledon College of Arts. The bursary allowed me to invest in the software needed to digitise embroidery designs. In between jobs I have started digisiting samples of 18th century embroidery, of which you can see the first one on the left as a sample print (the white should be more cream, which I did not have at the time). This is taken from a suit I saw during my research on the MET museum website.
I have since invested in an embroidery machine and have been given the opportunity to create embroidery work as well as making costumes for film during 2020/2021.
Otto Baron van Randwijck
During my final year, I created a Habit à la Française with digital machine embroidery. Before this, I had never used the software or an embroidery machine but with support of Wilcom EmbroideryStudio Designing and some online help I was able to recreate the habit that was once worn by Otto Baron van Randwijck in The Netherlands. The base was all done by machine with hand sewn French Knots added in on top to give more of a 3D effect.
Royal Opera House - Hansel & Gretel
For the new Royal Opera House production of Hansel and Gretel 2018 I provided machine embroidered buttons designs for the Cinderella's Prince costume, stitched in metallic threads.
Production photo credit: Clive Barda
Erté - Der Rosenkavelier
For my second costume in my final year at Wimbledon I also used digital embroidery to create the outlines of the bows and apron to mimic the graphic style of Erté's design for Der Rosenkavelier for Glyndebourn in the 1980's.