Intimate Apparel [2006]

March 11, 2021

Intimate Apparel [2006]

For this Throwback Thursday we're going all the way back to my days as a Stitcher with Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

Here we have a trio of corsets built for Milwaukee Rep's 2006 production of Intimate Apparel, which was a part of their 2005/06 Season. One of the cobalt blue corsets was worn by Tyla Abercrumbie as the character Mayme and the other was worn by Heather Prete as Mrs. Van Buren; the fuchsia corset was also for Heather Prete as Mrs. Van Buren. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage, this production of Intimate Apparel was directed by Risa Brainin with costumes designed by Devon Painter. The show ran from February 24 - March 26, 2006 in The Rep's Stiemke Studio.

Our team in the Costume Shop consisted of Holly Payne as Draper, Jef Ouwens as First Hand, and myself as Stitcher.

Corsets made for Intimate Apparel, Milwaukee Repertory Theater 2006.

Milwaukee Rep summarizes the play:

Ester Mills is a middle-aged African-American seamstress living in 1905 Lower Manhattan. She makes her living by sewing intimate apparel for women but dreams of one day owning a beauty parlor of her own. Kind and generous, she shares her talents with not only her clients, but her friends as well. Despite the satisfaction she gets from sewing beautiful things, Esther is aware that the refined fabrics which surround her cannot take away her sense of hopelessness. In an effort to change her life, she turns to the company of a mysterious pen pal. Quickly swept up in a misconception of love, Esther struggles to separate her illusions from reality and to become the strong, capable woman that lives inside of her heart.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060518080942/http://www.milwaukeerep.com/season/performancedetails.php?ID=20

Costume rendering by Devon Painter for Tyla Abercrumbie as Mayme.

Intimate Apparel, Milwaukee Repertory Theater 2006.

Costume rendering by Devon Painter for Heather Prete as Mrs. Van Buren.

Intimate Apparel, Milwaukee Repertory Theater 2006.

All three of these corsets are constructed of duchesse silk satin flat-lined to a coutil base, seams are flat-felled, petersham tape at the waist, boning is 1/4'" spirals stitched into 1/2" bone casing. Mrs. Van Buren's pink corset is also piped on every seam (black silk satin). I was given the o.k. to construct these corsets as close as possible to real period garments, something that is very rare in the theatre world, usually due to time constraints and future alterability issues. Neither was a pressing issue in this case. The actors also put on and removed these corsets on stage, in a small, intimate theatre space so we wanted them to be as real as possible. My research included extant period examples found online and more specifically from an antique period corset in my personal collection.