The First Cloak
The first hooded cloak was based on the split-front design that I had established in earlier sketches like the one below:
Thankfully, I discovered a talented dressmaker on Maui, Jennifer Oberg (The Perfect Fit), who was willing to take me seriously. She began her own work through a series of rough "sketches," also - but her medium was an inexpensive, colorless fabric called muslin, in which she could determine a pattern for the final garment through trial and error. Jennifer was patient enough to make three or four of these muslin samples before we found just the right arrangement of shapes and proportions to most closely match my concept drawings.
Below, my model, Erin, tries on an unfinished dress and one of the first muslin cloaks so that we could judge the success of the pattern. For the sake of comparison, the hood was designed differently on each side in this sample, with one side fuller and more open than the other - we ultimately chose the more open variety for the final garment. Here, Erin also holds the candlestick prop that I had just finished constructing:
Several muslin variations followed, each a closer match to my concept than the previous one, until we felt that no further improvement could be achieved. The final design occassionally differed from the original sketches in order to solve a variety of real-world, practical problems that my fanciful drawings could not anticipate. Also, the cape and sleeves became much longer, hanging nearly to the model's ankles, in order to provide a cleaner, wider curve from side to side when seen from the back. The color choices changed a bit, too, since the exact colors that I had envisioned were not always readily available in the silk fabrics that we chose to use.
But, in most respects, the final garment was quite true to my vision. It was completed entirely in the finest, sueded silk charmeuse, giving the cloak a luxurious quality that carries it to the level of an authentic garment, rather than some goofy costume.
Below, the cloak well advanced, but still in progress, at Jennifer's studio:
An important element for me was the form of the drapery of the long, falling sleeve, especially as seen from the front - we achieved the desired appearance by designing the sleeve as a wing-like shape much longer than the model's arm, so that the excess fabric would bundle upon itself in an attractive way when allowed to fall from the wrist under the pull of gravity. The interior color of the sleeve is slightly different from that of the exterior (one is darker than the other), so that both colors are revealed as the inner and outer surfaces overlap one another:
Jennifer understood that I was looking for the highest quality result possible, in order to maximize the credibility of the garment, so she attended to every detail with care. In the photos below, Erin wears the "final" dress and cloak (although we actually went on to make significant alterations to both even after this successful photo-shoot). With the combination of a medieval setting at an old church and some mood lighting at twilight, the garments really came to life:
