How come I haven’t written about this custom made costume sooner?
Last year I got a last minute request to create a bottle costume in time for a marathon… literally 2 weeks, to communicate design, possibilities and budget, all the while working on other projects…
Several emails discussing possibilities, bottle designs, round or flat? where does the face go? how important is visibility? We had to make sure the printers could fit the run in once the fabric was designed and printed, there were only a few days to put it all together, the foam structure, the padding outside the foam base, the fabric. where exactly does the face go? the arms, how high do we make the hem? how heavy is it? How much foam can we cut away to make it lighter?
I drove out to the Blackmores headquarters in Warriewood to do a fitting and make sure the arm holes were in the right place from the face, the harness inside was sitting in the right place, the edges were finished…, it took several hours and a few fittings in between meetings, and then the costume was ready to go and break a Guinness World Record! Yeah!
This was the result
bottle costume
Fastest time for completing a marathon dressed as a food supplement! YaHoo!
Perhaps I should have won a record for fastest time getting a costume designed and made for a marathon… ha
And if it had to be made again, would I make it the same way?
Let me just say this, experience gives us little stepping stones to step up and on to the next step, so perhaps there are a few little tweaks that could be made, provided budget and time frame enable, but on the whole, the frame work held up, the colours were bright, they chose the right bottle design.
We did warn about chaffing, and weight over several kilometres, but the runner was training and determined to win that goal! Who am I to doubt another’s determination? Well Done!
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