2009 – La Bionda Venexiana

I have been working with hair pieces from an African shop for several years now and built up to 80cm high wigs. To glue that hair is quite difficult cause traces of the glue can ruin everything in a second. For some years I thought that this kind of artificial hair is an interesting material and it should be possible to make whole dress out of it.

As you can see, it is possible. But it was one of the most difficult, time and money consuming costumes I ever made. And the transport was the real problem. The whole thing is so fragile and delicate that I was very afraid it would look like an exploded chicken when I unpack it in Venice.

It was a crap-load of work to carefully comb and glue the hair. I put a ton of hairspray on it to fix it. All “laces” are also braided from hair. Needed a lot of patience and time. And it did not last as long as the fabric costumes.

Oh, the name… well, for Venetian women (especially the ones with a “loving” profession some centuries ago – Venice was very famous for its charming curtisanes… but that is a different story 🙂 ) blonde was a beauty ideal. They had put a lot of effort in the art to become a blonde. So I thought as a courtesy to Venice I’ll make blonde my ambition…

Fortunately Odile (who has dark hair) also wanted to be blonde once in her life. Since she is French and petite she was perfect to wear it. Thanks, Odile, you looked wonderful and I loved seeing you on stage!