The Costume Shop Saves the Day
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Juilliard Journal
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Some of the Juilliard costume shop team who rallied to churn out 137 ceremonial hoods for commencement
By Susan Jackson
With just a week to go before commencement, there was a problem, and it wasn't just Friday the 13th jitters. The company Juilliard rents graduation regalia from had a supply chain issue, and while the gowns had arrived without a hitch, the company wasn’t sure whether the hoods that all master’s students wear would arrive on time.
Tina Matin, who handles commencement regalia, also works closely with all of Juilliard’s operations departments, so she’s used to thinking on her feet. But this was a challenge that not just Juilliard was facing. All over the country, as the Wall Street Journal reported that same day, May 13, commencement regalia purveyors were trying to avoid what in their industry “would be a disaster: graduations without much pomp, due to supplier circumstances.”
Matin contacted the Juilliard costume department, where some of the staff had already left for the summer and the rest were getting ready to clean up from a busy year, take inventory, replenish supplies, and otherwise prepare for the year ahead. “I just wanted to see if they had a suggestion for a fabric supplier,” Matin said. Turns out they came up with not just a supplier (it took four, actually) but a solution to the whole problem.
The Edge of Possible
Nicola Gardiner, assistant costume shop supervisor, takes over the story. “Tina came in to the shop and explained the situation. Whenever a project comes up, we assess and see what it would take and what the cost would be before saying absolutely yes or absolutely no. And we determined we were right at the edge of it being possible.”
“The request came in at 11am last Friday, and by 11:30, we’d gotten the ball rolling,” says Luke Simcock, costume shop supervisor. He was speaking a week later—spoiler alert!—a few hours after Juilliard students had received their master’s of music and master’s of fine arts degrees, resplendent in 137 beautiful new hoods.
“We realized we’d need the administration to approve the budget by 3pm in order to get the material we’d need in time,” Simcock said. “In the meantime, our draper Tomoko [Naka] started prototyping the hood” so they could figure out what they’d need to create their own.
Meanwhile, Matin tracked down a hood that happened to be in the building. “I had never seen that kind of shape of hood before,” Naka said. “But that’s part of what I do when I drape—I have to figure how it’s made and what steps are involved and create a pattern. In this case, I had to figure out how to put it together in a very short time. There was no waiting.” By Monday morning, she had made a pattern “so we could cut as soon as we got the fabric.”
At the same time, Simcock and Gardiner were determining who would be available to work on the project. In the end, 19 people were involved, including the five costume shop staffers who are year-round and whatever apprentices and part-timers were still around before going off to their summer gigs, plus a few freelancers and prop shop staffers.
The next step was to source the fabric. Each hood would require black crepe, red satin, and blue ribbon. The MFA hoods (lined with brown velvet, for the acting students) required eight pieces of material per hood. The MM hoods required 10 pieces including interfacing to stiffen the softer pink velvet that indicates the wearer studied music.
An Amazing Team
On Monday morning, members of the team picked up 180 yards of fabric at four different stores in the garment district and hauled it back to Juilliard. And then everyone started cutting. “It was really more like factory work rather than the couture work we’re accustomed to—though the steps to get there are the same,” Gardiner said. They were also figuring out who should be doing what and when since “each fabric has to be cut and stitched differently.”
“The red lining and black fabric could be cut in stacks, but the velvets had to be cut one layer at a time. Once there was a big enough pile of red fabric, we started applying ribbon to it,” Gardiner said. “Then we attached the velvet and the black and sewed the lining and black into one piece and then together. And as we finished each hood the wardrobe staff steamed it.”
When the last hood was done, “there was a big round of applause, and then we put the hoods in a giant rolling bin and sent them on their way,” Gardiner said. “We even finished two hours before we thought we would. We have an amazing team,” she added, a sentiment echoed by everyone who participated in or heard about the process.
At the end of commencement day, the hoods were returned to the shop for cleaning and pressing, and stored away for next year’s graduation ceremony. “We can definitely make more if we need to,” Simcock said. “Hopefully we’ll have a little more notice!”
>See a video of the costume shop creating the hoods at juilliard.edu