Cesario’s Doublet
Show: Twelfth Night: the Musical
Position: Draper
Date: Spring ’23
Location: Ithaca College
Costume Designer: Andrea Mejuto
Costume Shop Manager: Lilly Westbrook
Starting from the rendering and the cutter board, I was given a doublet pattern to work from. This was my first proper draping project, so throughout the process I asked a lot of questions.
The original pattern’s peplum was very different from the rendering, as was the closure. Because of this, after building the original pattern, I added pieces of muslin to fill out the peplum to match the rendering for Sebastian’s doublet.
From there, I took apart the first mockup and traced them onto brown paper to make a new pattern that I then used for the second mockup.
As this doublet had a mirror twin, Lilly then taught me how to modify a pattern to fit other measurements. After modifying the pattern, I built the mockup for Cesario.
Once the mockups were fit, I built the doublet out of the final fabric which was an upholstery fabric. Because of it’s thickness it was especially important to iron the seams.
I also put in the closure, a zipper that goes from the shoulder to hip.
After seeing this iteration, the designer let me know that the wing pieces were too wide. I then checked with her to find out the exact shape that she was looking for and fixed that aspect of the doublet.
The doublet was also part of a quick change, so during tech I added magnet tabs to help speed up the change.
The final piece is one I’m very proud of. As the first large project I worked on, it was a difficult and rewarding process.