During Act II is when Cho also got to explore more with her color palettes, drawing from famous paintings and personal photographs from the time period.
“For each scene, there was a painting I used for inspiration. I looked for paintings in the era that we’re looking at. For Paris, I looked at Gustav Klimt’s ‘This Kiss’. All of the women in the ballet sequence are in the warm palette. The show is so big and vast in styling. For any one fabric that was chosen on stage, there were 100 different swatches.”
But Anya’s wardrobe isn’t the only place where Cho got to explore historical royal costumes. She also had to create costumes for the whole Romanov family, who are on stage mainly in the first act.
“There was a lot of costume research for the actual historical gowns. One of my challenges was to translate those designs to move magically, which was pretty tough. I got the color inspirations from the photographs. One of the favorite colors of the Tzarina was the pink/lavender color.”
From afar, they are truly fit for royalty and each and every jewel catches a light that reflects in the audience’s eyes. Backstage, I saw these gowns up close, and they are nothing short of perfection.
“Nothing reads on stage like glitter, rhinestones, and sewn-on jewels,” Cho said. “Each of them have different trims and necklines, just miles of trim that was applied and jeweled. It was a multi-step process. The Tsarina’s dress is 50 pounds!”
