Hairspray Costumes

Hairspray is the first show in several years where many of the costumes have been hand made by our fantastic volunteers. In the video, costume designer Sarah Buchanan talks about the different Hairspray costumes created for the show and talks about some of the reasoning behind the fabrics, styles, and cuts.

One of the things that we do try to do with the costumes is create almost these visual clusters of the characters so that you know that they belong together. The Dynamites, of course, are all wearing the same costumes, the same colors but different cuts so they have individual personality.

Tracy and Penny, who are best friends, they’re both wearing plaid most of the show so you can tell them that those two belong together. Amber Von Tussle and her mom Velma are both wearing blue quite frequently throughout the show. Amber Von Tussle’s costume is still full skirted, still very much late 50s kind of style. We wanted her to be very much a holdout with her style and her fashion. The Dynamites and Tracy are more of the late 60s moving into the 70s. More edgy interesting pieces. We wanted to kind of show their views with these costumes.

This is one of the costumes for motormouth Maybelle.Iit’s for her number big blonde and beautiful and we wanted it to be attention-grabbing. Really be a statement when she comes out. It is really just a declaration of who she is and what she is and her beliefs and who she is as a woman. We made it out of the gold lame and we made it into a wrap dress so that would be very easy for her to transition her costumes. This one is one of my personal favorite pieces it was just a lot of fun to construct and design it

Just to kind of show the contrast between Amber which is a full skirt with a fluted bodice vs Tracy’s really go-go 1960s kind of style. The lights in here don’t do it justice but when you see it on under the stage lights it’s sparkles and it’s just this vibrant tangible look at how Tracy’s spirit is throughout the show. That she is this vibrant, warm, exciting individual

if you haven’t yet make sure you get here to see hairspray for their final weekend and please do join us for spooky tales in Transylvania!