About

With 27 years of industry experience in theatrical costume and garment creation for film, theatre, television, and fashion, mainly within the U.K. and New Zealand.  I am a highly skilled pattern drafter, draper, master tailor, and workroom supervisor, very accustomed to working within the strictest deadlines, to the highest of standards, and with a professional, confident approach.  Throughout an extensive career, my niche has been producing made-to-measure bespoke costumes and garments for principal world-class lead performers, often of a highly unique design with specialist movement requirements.

Extensive research has been instrumental and integral throughout my career in creating male and female tailoring, from period cuts to the modern day, including all underpinnings and essential elements to create the appropriate historical silhouettes.  These skills bring a remarkable ability to deal with ‘fantasy’ and ‘out of the usual’ designs, drawing from my technical skills of 2D to 3D understanding. Since relocating to New Zealand 17 years ago, film work has often fallen within these fantasy and sci-fi genres, expanding my classical training knowledge with a comprehensive understanding of various costume prop construction techniques. Many of these productions are also heavily focused on textile creation, necessitating a strong collaboration between the fabrication team and myself as a pattern drafter. This collaboration is crucial in planning, creating, and successfully combining textile design layouts with the garment pattern piece requirements, providing a unique and enriching experience. In addition, due to my time at the Royal Opera House and Covent Garden, proficiency also includes classical to modern dancewear, tutu construction, and stretch wear.

My academic journey has been a significant part of my professional development since achieving a First Class Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Theatre Design / Costume Interpretation at Wimbledon School of Art in 1999. I furthered my skills with a Diploma in Digital Photography in 2015 from S.I.T. New Zealand, a course that heavily relied on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator proficiency and provided a complementary skill set to my everyday work. In 2022, I returned to academic research, winning a scholarship to study for a Master’s in Historical Costume at The Arts University Bournemouth in the U.K. via correspondence. Through this research, I volunteered at Auckland Museum to document the museum’s oldest Eurocentric garments and update the object files. The depth of the study into 18 artefacts (and counting) resulted in an application and winning of the Geoffrey Squire Memorial Bursary 2023 from the Costume and Textiles Association [C&TA] U.K., providing a substantial research grant, making the intended P.A.R. of integrating historical practices with creative modern technologies possible. This research also led to an invitation to become a Research Associate with Auckland Museum and collaborate with Curator J. Groufsky to write and publish a book, providing a small insight into the work undertaken. Upon the nearing completion of the Master’s, the current focus is on formalising a PhD proposal.

Alongside my professional career, considerable time is occupied teaching students and mentoring other industry peers, witnessing the complexities and difficulties others face when translating even basic pattern-making principles.  This observation has made me question what improvements can be implemented, which has driven my preoccupation in exploring the diversity of pattern drafting, particularly pattern drafting techniques and considerations required to produce made-to-measure bespoke clothing.  Much is to be learnt from the old master tailor pattern systems, observing how they have adapted over the eras to align with current fashion trends.

With such a busy life, taking valuable time to be creative has always been a much-needed therapeutic escape. 2024 marked a significant achievement with my first solo art exhibition of 58 works, ‘Creative Indulgence’, at Estuary Arts Centre, Orewa, New Zealand, curating 12 years of my artistic explorations within various mediums.