Erica Cahoy competed at the State One Act Festival that was heldFebruary6ththroughthe8th in Brookings at the South Dakota StateUniversityPerformingArts Center. She competed in the costume designcompetition,whichis a first for an Avon student. Erica was awarded a Superior medal for her entry into the state-wide competition. What led her to want to compete in this specific competition was her love of The Great Gatsby and the fashion of the 1920s era which she felt would be a good design fit for the play.

The costume design competition has a contestant create three drawings with an explanation of each of the designs. One costume is created for three different characters in the play. Erica chose characters Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Jay Gatsby. The explanation is a typed summaryoftheplay,whattimeperiod/locationwaschosen, a description and justification of each design and what message the artist was trying to get across through the designs.

The drawings and explanations are then set up at the State One Act competition for judging. The judge evaluates threecategories:interpretation,executionandpresentation. Interpretation is to what level are the production concepts appropriate as well as the time and location of the play. Execution refers to the precision and clarity of the drawings including artistic quality and detail accuracy. Presentation is judged through the knowledge of the play, understanding of the production concept, justification of design elements and how effectively these ideas are communicated. Erica believes that the judge was looking for costumes that were appropriate for the 1920s since that was integral to the play as well as appropriateness for the scenes and characters.

For Erica, it only took a week for her to make the designs because she had been thinking about them for quite a while before actually putting colored pencil to paper. As there were no set themes or styles for the competitors to use, it was a matter of contestants being able to justify what they each chose. Erica’s designs were styled based on the 1920s, while other contestants chose different time periods and styles. One aspect that really stood out to Erica was the need to portray wealth in her designs as the play was about the lives of very rich people.

Erica’s favorite costume design to create was between two female characters, Daisy and Jordan. Both looks were for a party, with flappers being the inspiration behind the designs. The two characters were very different and Erica wanted to be able to visually show the difference between the pair. For Daisy’s look, Erica created a classiermoreproperdesignasDaisy was of a nobler class and from oldmoney.Jordan’scharacterwas a modern woman from new money; therefore, Erica chose a more modern and flashier flapper look. Like any competition, as a competitor there were challenges for Erica.Shehadtoresearchandlook for inspiration while incorporating other styles into her designs. She was not able to look up Great Gatsby costumes to reference as the competitors could not use designs that were already created. Her designs were very intricate and had a lot of details which was hard to translate into the actual design. Erica finally realized that every detail did not visually matter as long as she could explain and justify them. Drawing the models was also very challenging, forcing Erica to spend a lot of time watching tutorials and practicing drawing different body types with different proportions while still being anatomically correct.

The competition was not actually about sewing and creating a costume, instead it allowed the participants to use any medium they wanted. Erica chose paper and colored pencils.Oneofthecritiquesofherdesignswasthatthejudge would have like to see her use more than one type of supply such as fabric swatches, costume jewelry, etc. Taking part in this competition has taught Erica to appreciate costume designers much more. She now stops and evaluates the time and design that goes into each costume that is seen in plays or movies. The competition has also inspired Erica to want to learn how to sew. She thinks that it would be awesome to draw a design and then be able to sew it, bringing that design to life.

Erica’s advice to anyone thinking about participating in a design competition is to definitely do it. Do not wait until the last minute, mix different design mediums to create new textures, stay loyal to the play, take risks, think and ask someone else if your ideas/concepts make sense.