Today’s shared story comes from costume-maker Jane Grimshaw who has made costumes for films which have gone on to win Oscars for Costume Design.
When I was first asked to write this piece about myself I thought, “How hard can that possibly be?” Well it turns out quite flippin’ hard actually. So I decided to tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
Some time in the early 1980s a young girl was rummaging through the sewing cupboard. In a dark corner she found the cut off bottoms of a pair of enormous embroidered purple flairs her hippie mother had owned with pride some time in the not so distant past. Now this was the 1980s, every thing to do with the previous decade’s fashion was defiantly passé. Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have stuffed these abominations back in to the dark corner from whence they came. But not this little girl, she took them, cut them up and made them in to a very interesting skirt.
Fast forward to the summer this now-not-so-little girl turned 18. This time she kept herself in beer and crisps for the long break after A-levels and before college by making patchwork shorts for everyone she knew (and a few she didn’t). She even made some with a padded bum for a bicycling boyfriend. And what did this little girl want to do for a living? Social work. Oh come on! Thankfully the aforementioned boyfriend with the padded bum had other ideas. His mother ran the costume department at our local drama school and he talked her in to giving me a job.
A year later I am at London College of Fashion, having a whale of a time, meeting lifelong friends and apparently training to be a costume maker.
This is a costume made in Nora’s workroom last year for the production of Adriana Lecouvreur at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden
20 years later here I am, still making costumes. Big ones, small ones, thin ones, very very fat ones. Some of its glamorous, some of it isn’t. Glamour comes in the form of films (Elizabeth, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The End of the Affair, soon-to-be-realised John Carter on Mars, you get the drift). I have in fact made costumes for not one, not two but three films that have gone on to win the costume design Oscar: Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator and Elizabeth the Golden Age. The non-glamourous bit comes in the form of constantly having to remake the same set of costumes for West End shows. (Phantom of the Opera, We Will Rock You, Lion King, Chicago – again you get the picture).
I am currently working on Tim Burton’s new film ‘Dark Shadows’, Lion King and Phantom of the Opera. Somehow even after all of this time I do still enjoy it. Well most of the time. Constant deadlines can get to even the best of us from time-to-time. But then that is why I write my blog. It helps to have something else to focus on that isn’t costume related! It helps to keep things in perspective, and join the disparate parts of my life, -costume making, family and constant side projects.
I do feel very lucky to think that what was once my hobby has become my way of making a living.
[All images courtesy of Jane Grimshaw.]
Find out more about Jane by visiting her blog Flaming Nora.
***
Missed the retreat? Why not join the Do What You Love e-course?
This online adventure starts on June 6 and will take you step-by-step along the path towards doing what you love.
Find out more and register here.
This is your life we are talking about…
