Emily State

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Qualifications

 

BA Costume University of Hull Scarborough Westwood Campus 2:2

 

First year

For my first year project I made a 19th century Victorian crinoline dress inspired by the portrait of Empress Eugenie and her ladies in waiting by Winterhalten. This dress is based on the attire of Countess De Montebello. As part of this project I had to make Victorian underwear including bloomers, a chemise, a corset and a crinoline cage. The dress skirt is made up of three tiers of faced scallops.

 My design project in first year was Precious Cargo in association with Scarborough Museum and their charms exhibition that they hosted. With themes of British folk law and the Victorian superstitions, this was an extremely fun project to indulge in creating grotesque characters such as the Black Annis.

 

Second Year

Using the 1940's and 50's sex symbol Gypsy Rose Lee as a muse, this project was all about glamour. All the dresses in this project had to include a generous amount of beading that surrounded their theme. My word for this dress was tattoo. I carried out a lot of research into vintage tattoo style and tattooed ladies in side shows. This lead me to design a dress that resembled a tattooed body, thus the colour scheme for this was an array on flesh. The section I am most proud of on this costume is the beaded koi carpe .

     Ark of the Animal was a huge collaborative effort to make, stage, and fund a community based puppet production based on the biblical fable Noah's Arc. Gaja is a wise Indian Elephant who stays to die in the flood. This huge puppet was a team effort between myself and another designer. We used a variety of materials such as bamboo, recycled tin cans, latex and

spray paint.

 

Third Year

Based on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a concept album by music and fashion icon David Bowie. The protagonist of course is Ziggy , a human manifestation of an alien from Mars, sent to be the voice of hope for the seventies Earthlings. This costume conveys Ziggy’s final stand, a somber yet glamorous stage costume which also allowed me to indulge in my passion for working with latex.

A 1920s design twist on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses. I wanted to incorporate the art deco illustrative style into my designs, yet bring a subtle colour palette to the projects aesthetic by boycotting the colour red . This divisive use of colour eliminates warmth and communicates the urbanization of 1920s Chicago.

An apocalyptic twist on the classic hollywood musical Calamity Jane. I wanted to show the progression of Calamity's struggle with her gender identity though design. The costume is created using no new materials but found objects to express a post apocalyptic environment.