Pièces created by Sarah Habib
MUA: Emilie Green
Model: Jeanne Evin
Photography by: Yves Inchierman
NOT LIKE THE OTHER BOYS
Directed by Caroline Albrectsen
Costume Design by Sarah Habib
THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The Great Expectations
For the Playground Theatre
By Anastasia Revi and Lydia Vie
Costume and set design by Eirini Kariori
THE FLIES
Written by Jean Paul Sartre
Directed by David Furlong
For the Bunker Theatre
Costume Design by Sarah Habib
THE ELECTRONIC DAISY CARNIVAL ( LA) – Rainbow Production
FATAL DECLARE
Directed by Liam Pinhero Roger
Costume design By Sarah Habib
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ALADDIN
Virgin Trains
Natural Dyes for BREAK OF NOON
For BREAK OF NOON I had to dye a dress in a reddish pink. I wanted it to be old , faded, passed.
I used red onions skins and raspberries to create the tone I wanted :
I then came back on it with a soft touch of red acrylic dissolved in a bit of natural dye that I had left.
HEARTFELT
Heartfelt is a short film produced by LCC film practice students.
Dila Kavur imagined a world in which nobody could live without a soul mate.
Creating a dystopia/ parallel reality took a while and some aspect of it have been figured out at the last moment.
We worked together to sharpen the concept. To me costumes were the most important thing to work on. Indeed, a short film implies that the audience doesn’t have a lot of time to understand what’s happening. A dystopia was then even harder set on a screen. Costume, set and light, had to work together to create an environment in which the characters could evolve, making the public understand quickly what’s going on.
The first part of the job was to talk the director. All of them don’t necessarily work the same way on the same project. For this one, Dila didn’t really know what settings she wanted. She had a script, characters, words but no physical image, aesthetic idea for her movie. As costume designer, my first job was to understand the world she created and then understand people’s lives inside of it. I put together a list of questions, to which Dila answered. These questions helped her to build her world, to realise what she needed to work on , what I needed to know, what set people needed to know etc … Pre production took 4 months and I had to find/make everything in 3 weeks.
This project has been a real challenge as I had to adapt myself day-to-day to the vision of the director which was changing constantly, even until the last-minute before shooting.
All in all , I managed to create a dressing code and rules for this new world. No jeans, comfortable cloths only, turtle necks for everybody to accentuate the notion of being prisoned . No freedom in that world.
we worked with very a very specific colour palette:
a lot of knitted garments as well.
I mainly shopped the cloths or organized myself with what the extras were bringing. The production team sent cloths requirement to all of them which helped a lot.
BREAK OF NOON
”Break of noon” or “Le partage de midi” by Paul Claudel is a french play adapted in English by the Exchange Theatre for the Finborough Theatre.
I pulled up in a very short time (5 days) 2 full suits, 2 dresses and found accessories. I sourced all the fabrics for the play.
The action takes place on a boat leaving from France and going to China, 1915. I did a lot of investigations and combined them with the director’s vision.
THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
The Duchess of Malfi was the last project of the year I worked on, and I just had 1 month to complete it.
This play, written by John Webster in 1612, reflects the hard position women had in the society back then. Our main character is forced to obey to her brothers, who both want her to stay unmarried.
It is sometimes hard to rely on a play, keeping the original period settings. I wanted to make the audience wonder if society really changed its sight of women. It is a true question. Some may say “yes, it changed”, some may say “no” ( my point of view being “we are slowly getting there.”). The 50’s, fashion wise, are beautiful and this is as well the time where women started to be more confident and strong. On the screen, we started to see them being a character of their own, not just supporting stupidly the masculine leading role, which is why I decided to set my play at that time. The duchess being a very independent woman, the 50’s aesthetic would give me the space to express her psychological journey through the story.
I started to look into Fashion, underwear, interior design, colours, volumes, everything that would allow me to understand the period and have a better insight of it.
I then research about arts as I wanted to find something expressing the violence of the play and the personality of the duchess. I found the italian artist Mimmo Rotella:
I then designed one moodboard for each act, recreating Rotella’s style on photoshop…
…and then, combined it with my designs:
The first act is the introduction of the duchess to the audience. It was important for me that they understand quickly who she is: a colourful character who wants to live her life as she wants, looking for freedom and love. During the second act, the main word is “secret”. The duchess is giving birth to the first child of her lover, which could make them both die, if somebody knew. The Third act is the finally the relief of the woman. The lovers can go away and although they are trying to flee from the palace, they are still together and out of sight for the first time. I designed this costume to show how free is the duchess feeling at that moment. I also wanted to create a break, a contrast between this part of the story and the rest of it. At the beginning she is still trying to be wise, she doesn’t allow herself to be the one she would like to be yet. And at the end of the play she is back in a dark dress, back to prison and trapped by her brothers.
Sarah Habib 