Behind-the-scenes: wardrobe

(part two)

The preparation for the performance begins even before the fitting stage, however. With Birmingham Royal Ballet currently so busy, costumes for forthcoming productions are already being checked while the Company is still touring the previous repertory.

'So while we're off on tour doing Swan Lake, there's people already checking the costumes for Giselle, or whatever's coming up', says Jo as an example. While these teams can carry out cosmetic repairs however, there are other issues that only become apparent with experience.

'The week Swan Lake opened we missed a lot of lunches', she remembers. 'The elastics kept going and we had to change them all over. Because we'd been in Japan at the start of the year the costumes were checked while we'd been away. You'd only know if you'd done it before, but while the elastics look alright, remember they have been in storage for four years since we last did the ballet, and the condensation from the previous performance will have perished the elastic. If you've not worked the show before you'd not know it would be an issue, but normally we'd just change them all as a matter of course.'

'When the ballet was first made it was over 20 years ago,' Jo says, 'and some of the costumes are the same ones, so they're two decades old. They're all hand made - up to a point, we use sewing machines. We have to look after them to make them last because it would cost so much to get them re-made.'

The high cost of the costumes means there is not the luxury of vast rails of spare costumes for when something goes wrong. 'On the recent tour some of the girls from the Company didn't come with us to Belfast, and we were joined by local students. Some of them were very small, and this makes it difficult when you're fitting them to existing costumes. If there is a problem like this, we just have to find a way of fitting them because there's not enough spares around for a show of this size.'

Even with all the preparation, there is still the wear-and-tear you would expect with such a large show. 'You can have accidents happen,' says Jo, 'and have massive rips. When we need material, we go to a store in the wardrobe corridor. It can be odd though because we go there and try to match it, but the costume in question is so old and has seen so much action that the material has faded, and you've got the right spare material from the original roll, but you're doubting yourself because you're thinking "hang on, that looks so bright", and you can see that it's not going to go. So sometimes you have to wash it a few times to try and calm it down and dull it slightly so it'll be more of a match.'

Thankfully, such occasions are rare. It is during the performance itself that Jo says she is at her busiest, and here that she must work the hardest to ensure she gets to see those 32 fouettés!

'I have to time it right', she nods. 'Act I is my busiest because from the half hour call we're getting nuns, ladies-in-waiting and court ladies in and out of costume for the procession. Even though they're wearing these gorgeous costumes they have to wear big cloaks over the top because in the ballet the king is dead and they're all in mourning so they have to all be in black.

'Ten minutes after that we have to get them all out of costumes, make sure all the head-dresses and earrings are there, and hang the costumes up in the right places. Sometimes, depending on the casting, I have to get a pas de quatre girl out of her tutu and into a swan costume. You only have a 3-minute break between Act I and Act II, so that happens on stage. It's a full costume and head-dress change with white stage-paint applied to make her one of the white swans.

'After that, it goes a little bit quieter, so what I would do would be to take the pas de quatre costumes and head-dress and earrings back to the dressing room and make sure they go back into the right boxes, and then check the different rooms and make sure that all the head-dresses that have been used for the mourning procession are in the right places and that we've got all the earrings in pairs. Then I can re-set some of the costumes for Act I that aren't being used again until the next performance. As long as there are no repairs to be made, I can then go and watch a little bit of Act II from the wings.'

With a bit of luck, the repairs to be made are minimal, in which case all Jo's earlier work re-setting costumes pays off, and things get a little less intense. 'In Act III, we get two ladies-in-waiting into costume and then take them to their side and make sure they're on okay, and then I'm free for most of the rest of Act III to watch the Black Swan. Then we get ladies-in-waiting out of costume, and once we've done that I'm free for the rest of Act IV. I watch the start of the act and then go off and reset the costumes from Act III so that's done.'

Jo stops and takes a breath. 'It's all pretty constant but if you time it right you can see your favourite bits!'

ENDS