And…now on to the wardrobe!
“Aladdin” on Broadway wouldn’t be the same without its masterful wardrobe. Find out more about how the fabrics were sourced, the inspiration for the costumes, and what he considers the most challenging part about designing for “Aladdin”.
Q&A with Gregg Barnes
How much inspiration for the design did you take from the film. Where did you make it your own?
Broadway’s “Aladdin” is inspired by the animated film which uses a lot of anachronistic design references. The design for the show is equally irreverent in a way.
In some cases, we were faithful to the film (especially with the principal characters), but I also looked outside the box and made a marriage of what an audience expects to see with my own vision.
Some of the things I looked at:
Belly dancers, “Dancing with the Stars”, Roxy ushers, The Cotton Club (believe it or not), Hollywood Kitsch and MGM musicals, modern wedding dresses, tattoo art, Islamic architecture, jewelry (both ethnic and Cartier), carved wood blocks, and calligraphy.
All of these things and many more were then used to inspire the shapes and the palette of the finished design. The story of “Aladdin” is set in the city of Agrabah, which is a fictional place. “Aladdin” is a fable and by mix-mastering all of these images and inspirations, we hopefully ended up with a design vision that is unique to the particular telling of this wonderful story.
What’s the first thing you do when you find out you got a show? Sketch, source potential fabric, read into the story? What’s your process?
I always begin by listening to the other members of the creative team. We work as a collective and you never know where the best idea might come from. It has happened more than once that the solution for your finale costume might come from the fight director or your opening palette from the lighting designer. As things start to percolate, (and after extensive research), I begin the drawing and painting process. In the case of “Aladdin”, that might take six months.hundreds of sketches to be created, and then shoe drawings, hat drawings, beading samples, detail drawings, back views.it goes on and on. While that work is being accomplished and revised, there is a team seeking out textiles and embroideries and feathers and all of the elements you will eventually need to realize the design. After all of that is on paper, you get bids from the various shops that will create the clothes and off you go!
A lot of people don’t realize certain fabrics, colors, and styles are off limits for the sake of movement on stage and lighting. What do you have to avoid using for a show like this?
I always say that a costume must look like a butterfly and wear like an iron maiden. There are many tricks to making this happen and a lot of experimentation and learning from past mistakes help in the process. Collaboration is always the key. Careful meetings with the set and lighting designer help with color and for durability; no one knows better than the Wardrobe Supervisor — what to avoid to keep things looking like they were just delivered to the theater that day. We use a lot of silk in “Aladdin”, which some might think is excessive, but it lights the best and it paints beautifully so the color is always extraordinary. A careful blend of the fragile and the sturdy, the exotic and the ordinary can make magic when balanced in the right way.
