"Under the sea" costumes

May's school did The Little Mermaid for its spring play this year. There were only three mermaids, but many sea creatures. May was in the chorus, so I volunteered to do costumes for those kids.

The chorus was described in the stage directions as "acting as scenery." The seven sixth-graders in the chorus did a couple of dance scenes, and they stood in the background with some of the other sea creatures and sang and spoke lines together. I decided to go with an abstract design suggestive of a school of tropical fish or a coral reef rather than making more literal "fish" costumes. I was inspired by Julie Taymor's costumes for The Lion King, and added a bit of hip-hop flavor.

 I bought hot pink, lime green, and yellow cotton T-shirts on sale at the craft store for $2 each for the girls. For the one boy in the cast, I bought a dark forest-green shirt. After experimenting with fabric paint, I figured out a way to create an organic-looking wavy pattern on the shirts. I turned a laundry basket upside down, taped an old T-shirt over it for protection, and pulled the bottom 12 inches of each T-shirt over the top of the basket. I bunched up the bottom 8 inches or so of the shirt in loose pleats and sprayed it with black fabric spray paint. Each shirt was unique.

After each shirt had dried, I laid it flat on the floor of the garage and sprayed it with crystalline-glitter fabric spray. Then I used glitter fabric paint in a tube to put random dots of glitter over the shirt.

For a bit of hip-hop flair, I bought black costume jersey embellished with a random pattern of multicolored glitter. I made two fingerless gloves or mitts for each dancer -- a long one with fringe along the side for their right hands, which they used the most, and a wrist-length glove for their left hands. The sparkle and fringe made their hand motions more interesting. For the boy, I used a remnant of sheer forest-green novelty fabric to make wristbands that looked like seaweed.

 The kids were thrilled with their costumes. They wore black leggings and bare feet on stage. I cut strips of the black sparkly fabric for them to tie in their hair, though one girl wore hers around her ankle, which I thought looked cute. The costumes were simple and inexpensive and the kids could move easily in them, and they did make pretty good scenery. The gloves were the best part as far as they were concerned. I heard that one girl was wearing hers around school.

I didn't get many pictures of the kids in action, but here is May posing in her costume.

 

Comments

[Jo]

These are SO clever! And really cool. Fabulous.

[Tracie]

You are so good! These are really cute!

[Sarah]

Hi, Great information on costumes. I love the costumes. The site gives information about halloween costumes in different sizes and varieties. check the site once http://dressycostumes.com/