Thrifty Ellen’s theatre costume placement year success

Enterprising Costume with Textiles student Ellen Raine has used her initiative to help a charity-based theatre group thrive while stretching a budget during her year’s placement. 

Ellen began her time with the Leicester Theatre Group (LTG) expecting to see her costumes used when LTG put on Cats The Musical, but such was her success in designing and making costumes for Cats that LTG asked her to work on three more productions. 

She was helped by £600 per month from The Draper’s x UKFT Internship Bursary programme over three months of her stint in Leicester, and making the bursary stretch to help with living expenses allowed Ellen to devote plenty of time to finding material to work with. 

Study BA (Hons) Costumes with Textiles at the University of Huddersfield

“When I first joined the team, I was originally only going to be doing Cats, but after only a few months of working they encouraged me to do more productions. I was responsible for designing, budgeting, buying and making all the costumes and accessories for these shows," says Ellen, who is about to enter the fourth and final year of her degree.

Using charity shops to stretch a budget

“My budget was so tight that I had to utilise charity shops, but that was the best thing for me. I couldn't afford to be spending loads of money on brand new fabrics but charity shops were perfect because they want to get rid of clothes. I could cut these clothes up, make something else from them and make them work for that particular production.

“LTG don’t have a costume department, they normally hire costumes in so this would work better for them as well. 

"Now they are renting my costumes out to get some money back, so my costumes are being used all around Leicester at the minute, which is great especially as I'm from the area.” 

So pleased were they with Ellen’s costumes for Cats, LTG asked her to work on a Christmas cabaret, SIX The Musical and Chicago. 

“SIX and Cats are very different musicals, but SIX is a lot of fun and I really wanted to see how the costumes worked on stage. I worked very closely with the director and choreographer to discover what they wanted, how the costumes needed to move and how they looked under lights. I designed big ‘swing’ skirts and each character wore a corset, they needed to be quite different from the originals for copyright reasons.” 

For Cats, Ellen had to work hard with a budget of only £1,000 to play with. 

“As they had done this show in the past, they still had a lot of plain catsuits available. Therefore, I did fittings with all of the cast to see if we could reuse them; leaving me with only a few people to buy for. 

“I worked hard with the director for this show to ensure that the designs were exactly how he envisioned them to be. I experimented with paint to create texture and add colour to my work. I also did a lot of fabric trials as I wanted to add a fur-like texture to the shoulders on a lot of my costumes. 

“I really enjoyed working in the theatre and it has made me want to focus on this line of work in the future. The money provided through the Drapers’ x UKFT bursary enabled me to buy better equipment which really helped me this year. Without this money, I would have struggled massively to create the costumes I have. 

"I have learnt a lot which will not only help me in my final year at Huddersfield, but also in my future career.”