Art Deco Medusa Costume

Art Deco Medusa was handmade by myself and personally styled from the shoes to the headdress, leaving no element un-finessed. The pattern for the dress is researched from 1920's flapper-style dresses and is made from second-hand deconstructed garments. These garments are hand dyed and printed and create a stone-cold color palette. The dress is heavily encrusted with beading, rhinestones, and painted metal tear-drops which resemble snake-scales. Down the center of the dress glittered rubber snakes are woven into the design and doused with shiny black "blood". This effect is created with Rustoleum high-gloss enamel, and of course- lots of glitter!
The jacket is created from a discarded fur coat, which is sourced from an abandoned theatrical prop-shop in Pawtucket, RI. The shape is tailored to fit an authentic 1920's silhouette, and is re-lined with a screen printed snake-skin design. Adorning the outside of the coat are over 500 metal tear-drop metal pieces in a snake-scale motif, (all attached by hand stitching.)
To achieve this motif, my research included a trip to the Rhode Island School of Design's Nature Lab, where I documented specimen snakes on exhibition. I drew the various patterns of the skins on gridded paper, and translated the grid designs to the jacket to create a realistic snake-scale pattern. The scales are of course, adorned by more rhinestones for utter glam!
The structure of the headdress supports 20lbs. It is created from a halved-soccer ball used as a skull-cap, surrounded by a styrofoam ring. Some of the snakes that make up the headdress are wired-wrapped toy snakes, while others were fabricated from 3/4" plastic tubing of which I inserted wire and LED light strands. In the darkness of a Halloween celebration, the snakes on the headdress illuminate the glittering, slithering mass.
The shoes, an essential accessory- also evoke a 1920's flare. They are painted and embellished with the same metal pieces as the jacket and dress, creating a true continuity through the details, and thus the overall look.
I sewed feverishly and constructed sculpturally for over 100 hours, but this is not why I should win the competition. Combining the Art Deco style of the 1920's with the horror and mysticism of a Grecian Medusa was a seamless marriage of which only true art reconciles.
The project is a correlation between the Art Deco Style with one of it's heavy characteristic influences- Ancient Greece. These ideas are balanced into an epic, ghastly explosion of glitz and glamor!