I'm well into the costumes for "Taming of the Shrew" and have made a beautiful, beaded, ornate wedding gown for Kate.  Of course she needs to show up later at Petruchio's in the same dress...ruined by travel.  I have made a second dress with limper, duller ornaments and will have Kate  remove her farthingale so the dress hangs and drags.  How do I make it look wet and dirty?   I am thinking of something that I can spray on the bottom hem of the gown that will actually look like caked mud......not just stained.  Is there a polymer plaster or something that I can dye brown and stick to the fabric?

While we're on the subject...any ideas on making someone look wet without actually dousing them? 

Ah.....you mean like trunk paint...very textural....thanks I'll give it a try.

Dear Joan54:

From your posts on this thread and others I've read, you sound like an absolutely fabulous costumer.  Where are you located and do you take orders over the phone?

Keep up the great work!

Well.....here's my story.  My mother was a tailor and I learned her skills and I also grew up in Western Canada where sewing skills are a valued and common attribute.  I ended up in New York...on eastern Long Island in a town called Southold running a construction company.  Life's weird huh?  My son was born to act  and I was appalled at the level of costuming and set design in the local theaters where he learned his craft.  So I started working for all the local theaters.  If I could start my life over I would make hats....they are my absolute joy but most theater groups want the rest of the costume too.  I'm also a fairly good painter. 

 My son and I have started our own theater company and it is doing well.  We work mainly with traditional Shakespeare...you know doublets, codpieces, farthingales....the works.  This suits me because I really don't have very much interest in the modern era of dress.  For example; our next play (opening in two weeks) is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  and I have not made a single costume for it.  Hate the fifties and sixties.  I have done the set and even that was a chore.

I have never charged a cent for my work but I own all of the costumes I ever made.  I am sort of a lending library of costumes.  I truly believe that there should be more cooperation and less competition between small theater groups and if you went into the theater to make money you were a fool.  It makes me happy to see my costumes used by another theater group or my backdrops borrowed by an opera company.

This brings me back to your question.  Yes I could take orders but I don't know what to charge.  I don't want to make boring costumes.  My time is limited, particularly now because we have "Taming of the Shrew" and "Othello" scheduled for this summer so that's about 30-40 costumes for me and a lot of set painting.  If you are interested in talking to me about your project send me the details. mailto:eeijoan@optonline.net - eeijoan@optonline.net  

An update on the dirty dress.....I bought a tube of latex painters caulking in a muddy brown color....squirted it into a tray and mixed in water until it was soupy like, well, mud.  I threw it at the dress which I had hung over a plastic drop cloth and let it run down the fabric.  Then I filled a spray bottle with water and a small amount of caulking (not too much so the sprayer wouldn't clog) and sprayed away at the bigger clumps of mud until they ran and dripped.  When dry...it  looks like a muddy wet dress but the caulking doesn't look like splattered paint and it is flexible enough that it won't crack and flake all over the place.....bet I can even through it in the washing machine and it will still look muddy...

There you go...my recipe for mud