Cinderella

Cinderella is a classic fairy tale character in all iterations. In Into the Woods she is a main character as she tries to get her fairy tale ending. In the beginning she wants to marry the prince and she does at the end of act 1. However, she realizes that she really just wanted to be loved and have her freedom from her terrible step family. This emotional journey is told by her costumes. For this production of Into the Woods, we told that through the her ball look. Due to time and budget constraints, we were able to make one costume that doubled for two looks. The different between the two looks is the fullness of the skirt and layers of sleeves. 

I began the process by making the petticoats. The first petticoat is made in a traditional 1950s style but with more layers. This makes the petticoat more akin to a princess or bridal petticoat. Early into the process, I was asked how many yard of netting did I think I would need. I guessed 10 yards. I ended up using 27 yards of netting. And this was just the start of the the many yards of fabric that would go into this dress. In the end, there were about 60 yards of fabric. The first petticoat was finished with a control layer to hold the tiers of netting in place. 

The second petticoat concentrates more of the fullness to the sides and back and leaves the front pretty flat. This is so that when the actor is wearing both, the dress is full, fluffy, and just like a princess. And in the second act, when the second petticoat is removed, the dress droops a bit on the sides and back, but the front stays roughly the same.

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The dress  is made of a boned bodice and a dirndl skirts layered on top of each other. The Skirt and bodices are rigged together will buttons in the bodice and elastic loops in the skirt. The skirt closes with a placket and snaps and the bodice closed with a zipper. 

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All parts of the dress and petticoats are rigged for a quick change because of the quick change in the beginning of act 2. For our production, Cinderella starts in the dress without the second petticoat and without the sleeve ruffles. She then has to change out of the dress and petticoat and get into the outfit that she began the show in. It was a 45 second change.