COSTUMES

Victor loved dressing up when he was little, and I, who have always loved sewing, threw myself into making all kinds of costumes for him. Having lived through many Carnival seasons in Brazil I have learnt there is a freedom in putting elements together to form a visual whole. The quality of the stitches is not so important, what matters is the sparkling creativity. 

For his fourth birthday, which had a Peter Pan theme, his costume consisted simply of torn pieces of green cloth held together with an old belt of mine and a little hat made from the same fabric decorated with a feather I found somewhere. Green sweatpants completed the outfit. He was thrilled to be in character and instructed me to sprinkle him with ‘pixie dust’. He was very put out when he couldn’t fly.

All little kids like capes, and Victor had many – amongst them a heroic blue prince cape and a vampire’s black cape dramatically lined with red ‘silk’ and in a later period of monsters and beasts I repurposed an old length of heavy black crepe to make him a floor-length robe, complete with a hunchback, with torn pieces of grey tulle attached to the collar for eerie effect. He wore it with a rubber monster mask and furry Beast slippers – from Beauty and the Beast – and I copied the slippers to make matching “beast” mittens. 

Making a costume for a child is an innocent undertaking. While your hands are busy, your thoughts idly circle around imagined scenes of the child dressed up in their new costume and having fun with other kids. Negative thoughts and problems are pushed aside by the creative process, which is often based on a general idea that takes shape as you hunt through your fabric remnants and then grows and expands.

The other day I asked my friend Karen what I could get for her soon-to-be 3year-old granddaughter. “She’s into princesses,” she said. “Why don’t you make her a cape?”  A cape? I thought. How would I make a cape, where would I start, did I even have anything I could use?

Nonetheless my interest was piqued, and it didn’t take me long to identify some pieces of golden satin and lace that would do, and I was in business. The project grew to include a matching little crown, and I even left my isolation - masked and with spray handy - to buy tulle and satin ribbons for the skirt I felt would complete the outfit. 

I was possessed by my project and spent 3 delicious days working on it. It made me reminisce about the many costumes that had gone before this one and also realize I had never made one for a little girl. When I showed photos of my creations to my friend and to her mother, they shared my delight and doubtless also remembered then the costumes they themselves had made in a now distant past. In a modest way it was a tiny superspeader-of-joy-event for all, for me crowned by a video of little Maya opening her present and yanking out the golden cape, crown and skirt. 

“What’s this, Mom?” she asked.

“It’s a PRINCESS costume,” her mother, Karina, answered with awe in her voice.

“I want to put it on!” said Maya stepping out of her skirt.

“Of course,” said Karina. 

They put it on and here is Maya, the golden princess.