Strella's Traviata dress - exclusive making of!

Strella - the movie, is making its debut for the public today, at the local cinema theatres. In Paris it's been played in 17 cinema's since last month, receiving excellent critics, but never mind, it seems that we like to follow even when it comes to stuff we produce ourselves. Having already watched it at Fog Films Fest earlier in November, I can tell you it's a must-see (look out for messages besides the obvious).

This blog is welcoming this premiere by hosting absolutely exclusive images of Strella's Traviata dress making of, through its creator's personal archive and his very own words. Costumes & fashion designer Vassilis Barbarigos that is, and the dress in talk is the amazing number Strella (Mina Orfanou) wore at the drag show scene (appearing in the official trailer, at minute 00:25) :
Like all other surprises in that movie, this dress is not what it seems. It is a paper dress, especially created for the needs and status of the particular scene. Here are the unreleased images of the construction process, followed by Barbarigos insights on the demanding project:
"The dress consists of 26 metres of hand-crafted paper lace. The paper used was light, with a delicate, mat laminated surface. The pattern is a perfect circle".
"It was made in February 2007 and it took myself and a small team of two to have it ready in about 10 days of full-time work. It involved sewing like with fabrics, but also silicon glueing resulting to some nasty finger burning! Challenging part was to make the low neckline stay in place during filming as paper does not behave like fabric on the human body".
"The brief was to create a dress based on famous performances of Giuseppe Verdi's 'La Traviata'. After reading the script, I felt that a conventional costume would not be the way. It was a drag show with surreal, comical elements and I found that a paper dress was more in line with the theme. Having had experience from a previous collaboration with the Benaki Museum for the exhibition 'RRRIPP!!Paper Fashion', I was both confident and inspired".
"The starring actress, lovely Mina Orfanou, embraced the challenge and wonderfully blew life into that paper dress. Of all the costumes I designed for Strella, I am more attached to this one by far. At the moment it is safely stored and at some point it will be exhibited".
"These are all images from my personal archive. Once upon a time, we used to shoot polaroids. Now it's the 3.2 Mega Pixels of a mobile phone..."
(above, Barbarigos with Orfanou at her birthday party)
Vassilis Barbarigos has been in the fashion industry for the last ten years. He's got numerous costume design projects under his belt, cinema, theatre, exhibitions and corporate, aside from his own collection and capsule lines for stores like Bettina in Athens. He agreed to unveil this material in a blog because he feels it is more personal, has a soul just like his work. Deeply honoured this blog is mine.

Best wishes to "Strella" the movie, costume designer V. Barbarigos, director P.Koutras and everyone behind this film. Above all, best wishes to the new Greek cinema.

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Strella for the french speakers

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