Guest Blogger: From the Costume Department

The dressing of the cast of “Of Mice and Men” created its own unique challenges. The costumes not only help create the personality of each character, but, try to reflect the flavour of the time period. The play is set in 1936, right in the middle of the Depression Era. Most of us have only read about the Depression. The country was not only economically depressed by but most people were also mentally depressed and exhausted. They were desperate to find a way out of their current situation.

The men of this play were all hard working and no doubt, hard playing. Their garments were distressed gradually over the past several weeks to hopefully create that impression. Our only female character had her own dreams of getting away. She would have held on to the few dresses she owned. Research showed us that there was very little fancy stuff for the garments. The dresses were long enough to be respectable but not full enough to be flirty; she did nevertheless find a way to make them look it.

Fashions at this time changed radically from decade to decade in North America. However, some styles return time and time again, as the saying goes “All things old are new again”. It took us a while but we found dresses that hit the mark.

Costuming a show is a team effort, and this team is one of the best. We did good.