SHANNON'Sdresses

THEATREcostume

A Doll's House - Norah Helmer

April 2011

Nora Helmer - played by Gabrielle Stewart

Luckily we were able to source most of Nora Helmer's costume pieces, but the script did call for a Tarantella costume and although I found the perfect skirt for scene 1, I needed to make a little house jacket to go with it.

Traditonally a Taratella costume has a white blouse and a laced bodice, but the director wanted something completely black. I had a red satin skirt for which the black waist section fitted the actress perfectly, so I simply detached it and made a new circle-skirt in black, and also made a matching top. (You can tell from the photos that the blacks are slightly different but thankfully under stage lighting it didn't show). The bottom of the skirt and the hems of the sleeves were then trimmed with red and yellow satin ribbon. Unfortunately, the script didn't actually have the actress performing the tarantella IN the costume though, which was a shame.

The little pink jacket was made from Butterick pattern 5232, out of a set of brocade-esque pillowcases I found at the op shop. The jacket's lining was the lining of the pillowcases, and the collar and cuffs were from some leftover pink fabric I found in the wardrobe room. I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out on such a budget. And that together with the pink skirt I found worked perfectly for the doll-like persona of Nora at the beginning of the play.