Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski Costume Collaboration

Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski Costume Collaboration

Cirque du Soleil has some of the most unique costumes in the theatre circuit, so when they collaborate with the Swarovski crystal company in costume sewing and design, you know there are going to be some amazing costume creations. Every Cirque du Soleil show has continued to amaze and charm audiences. These are stage productions that encompass smaller stages, often done under tents or smaller Las Vegas venues. A show has little dialogue, choosing to show rather than tell the story. And this is why a collaboration with Swarovski has been so exciting.

Many people know that Swarovski has a line of beautiful clear colourless crystals yet they forget that their crystal line also has bright colourful gems too. If you picture a Cirque du Soleil show, most people think of unusual and yet colourful costumes. Swarovski crystals were used for one of the costumes worn during the showing of Amaluna. This was a white dress worn during the Peacock Dance. This dress comprised two pieces, a bustier and a skirt. The bustier was made from a stretch nylon tulle to enable the dancer to move fluidly. The bustier was encrusted with white beaded lace that was covered in Swarovski crystals. The dress itself was made of nearly sixty metres of white non-stretch nylon tulle. The dress was constructed with a tail made from sun ray pleats and white peacock feather designs. This skirt was also covered in white lace and was covered in Swarovski crystals. The combined dress alone was covered in over 6500 Swarovski crystals.

Cirque du Soleil’s show Totem also featured an incredible costume that while simple, still packed an amazing wow factor for the audience. This costume began as a dark blue silhouette fully covering

Marina-&-Svetlana-Tsodikova Cirque Du solei-Totem
Marina & Svetlana-Tsodikova costumes made with 4,000 Swarovski crystals.

the male performer. Crystals were then attached in amazing patterns, much like resembling tattoos on the body. When the acrobat performed in his costume, the crystals would shine and sparkle in the light as he turned and rotated. For such a simple costume, it certainly stunned the eyes.

Swarovski has even been helping costume design students in the creation of costume designs. At École supérieure de mode (ESM) students were given the opportunity to redesign popular costumes from the Cirque du Soleil shows. Swarovski believes in supporting emerging fashion talents. Teams were formed, and they transformed past Cirque du Soleil costumers into new designs by using fabric and crystals together. Their aim was to reuse garments for sustainable living and to transform old materials into new forms.

Students made purses and bags from the old costumes. One notable design was a lot like a kaleidoscope from childhood, which is one of the notable themes that could come from a Cirque du Soleil show. The Swarovski company was impressed by the talents discovered from the ESM school.

Swarovski continues to enforce their commitment to sustainability through creativity and education. It will be exciting to see what other types of Cirque du Soleil collaborations they have throughout the remainder of 2016. Let your costume made also with Swarovski crystals!
Get in touch with us and we will design and create your perfect Swarovski Costume!!

Toruk – Avatar Cirque du Soleil – costumes of Na’vis

Toruk – Avatar Cirque du Soleil – costumes of Na’vis

Preparing a theatre version of a film or even an animation movie is always a great challenge. It is extremely a big job, if the original film is a 60 percent 3D animation movie – like Avatar. Do you remember the James Cameron movie?

Cameron created a whole world of Pandora moon, including the inhabitants: the Na’vis – the blue humanoids with long tails, the animals – like the top predator Thanator, the Direhorses with 6 legs, or the Toruk, the 25 m wide flying animal. As it is described, Toruk is a wild animal, taming succeeded only once by the grandfather of Neytiri, the daughter of the leader of the Na’vi tribe.

The theatre version of Avatar-story come out this December under the title of: ‘TORUK – The First Flight.’ The story of ‘Toruk’ is dated 3000 years ahead of Avatar-story. There are no humans, no spaceships, no battles – the key word is: organic.

The producing company to put ‘Toruk’ on the stage is the famous Canadian company, Cirque du Soleil.

It’s new to have an actor onstage talking, to have a show based on story instead of acrobatic acts. There’s a lot of acrobatic in the show, but it’s like narrative acrobatic. Everything has to contribute to the story.

said Michel Lemieux, one of the two co-directors of Cirque du Soleil’s ambitious new project ‘Toruk’.

Actors and puppeteers play the Na’vis – no animatronics nor robots. Acrobatics are important elements of the show, but in this case narrative acrobatic elements: each of them contributes the story.

Costumes of ‘Toruk’

The costume and makeup designer of ‘Toruk’ is Kym Barrett. Let’s take a look at her carrier up to ‘Toruk’!

Barrett has mastered a vast array of theater, TV and film genres including action, adventure, animation, circus, comedy, crime, fantasy, horror, mystery, opera, period (1800s-1980s), romance, science fiction, and thriller. She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2012 having designed the costumes for The Tempest directed by Robert Lepage.

TORUK – The First Flight is her second collaboration with Cirque du Soleil after TOTEM.

What was the main challenge of designing costumes for Toruk?

First of all, it must have been in line with the make-up, which is quite important – as the Na’vis have their special characteristics: blue body, big eyes, cat-like head. The blue body colors are provided by leotards, while other parts of the costumes reflects the key word of Pandora: “organic”.

As Kym Barrett explained, all costumes must have had an organic handmade look – as if Na’vis would have done them of “available” materials from trees, plants etc. The costume design is not finished even after the opening show: the actor, the director and even the lights rehearsal could make changes to have a better look, to create the stage version of the myth.

 


Sources: Entertainment, Cirque u Soleil