I remember wearing this a few years ago!

While it is a lovely idea to make costumes to fit, if you are on a tight budget it is highly likely you will need to reuse a costume over many years with many different people wearing it.  My first year I did not do this and found some costumes I could have used did not fit and had to make another!  My grand plan was that after two or three years there should be a stock of costumes that would be for the chorus and minor characters and I could then spend my time and money on the principal characters.  I didn’t take two things into account!  The first being my failure to make my first years costumes adjustable so any that I could have used just didn't fit the people they could have been used for.  The second problem was I did not figure on the director choosing Robin Hood the year after Snow White and most of the costumes I had made just didn’t fit into the medieval time period!

While I have certainly improved by adding lacings that can increase the size of a costume, or used elastic waistbands, I am more than aware there are other areas I could make this easier on myself.  I went to a local boot fair and stocked up on a variety of belts, they are surprisingly useful for making something look like it fits when it doesn’t!  Always make things a bit bigger than you need and then work out how to make it fit a smaller body, it will surprise you how many sizes you then cover for one costume.  All Marion’s dresses, for example, fastened with one hook and eye which will take little effort to fit a larger size in future productions.

Bear in mind that costumes can and will be recycled!  If you spend hours on sewing individual flowers on a Dames dress it will take hours to remove them!  We do four performances; I sew things on to last four performances.  For the Dames dresses I would suggest you need about six as a staple, although professionals may undergo considerably more changes, we tend to go for three or four dress changes for each performance.  Try and rotate the use of the dresses as the audience is unlikely to remember them unless you use them every year.  Then all you need to do is make one new outstanding dress for the end of the panto each year and throw everything into it.  Last year I used a huge gold bow and a bejewelled bouquet that were removed after the final performance and replaced with less memorable adornments for future use.  The bow and bouquet are now in my stash for future use.

I am now working on making a selection of bodices and skirts in various sizes that are also adjustable with lacing and elastic.  My plan is to then make over skirts that tie at the back with a bow, by adding these in different colours the basic garment will be changed from one year to the next with little effort.  

Some things are worth spending time on, such as the principal girls pretty girlie stuff that has all the females in the audience cooing with delight (and some of the men), but please make sure they are adjustable so that next year you can get them out again and they will fit a different size of person lurking in the background!

Here is a costume that underwent a bit of change:

Year one and the skirt is a froth of voile with flowers scattered all over.

Year two and the froth has become a petticoat under the same yellow strips.  Cat print shiny lycra is sewn between the yellow and the red waistband was added.

Year three is complete but no pic yet.  This time the red froth has become a bustle with LED lights at the ready to put in place!  I think I will stick with the year three concoction and move onto something else to play around with next year.