Sad Clown

One never knows when inspiration will strike. This was the case when I was randomly inspired by a sad clown lingerie shoot while scrolling through Instagram. I thought to myself that the aesthetic would lend itself nicely to a full-blown burlesque number! I simply HAD to create a number based on this randomly inspired idea.

I shared my inspiration with the girls at one of our Cabaret & Cocktails get-togethers and Lily (our music wizard) instantly offered up a couple of potential songs. “Baby Mine” by Arcade Fire was the winner right from the get-go. I had the inspiration. I had the song. Now I just needed the costume and the performer.

Given the nature of the piece, one of my burlesque students instantly came to mind to give life to this imagined character. I reached out to Miss Mosseefx and her response was quick and filled with enthusiasm. She was totally on board! This was happening!

I started the process by sketching an idea for a costume, breaking down the song, and creating a storyboard. I had Mossee come over for a little storyboard meeting. We listened to the song while I showed her my inspiration photos and we discussed the feeling that I was going for with this piece. We dug through my costume storage and started pulling articles of clothing for the look. We were making this happen!

My lovely performer has bright highlighter pink hair and the original inspiration photos were bright and pastel. We decided to move forward with a cotton candy sort of color scheme. Our top layer, I pulled from one of our 2 “The Shining” twins dresses that were in storage after our Halloween show.

Cute and girly with a lovely collar and some frills. I decided to make a simple clown collar to be worn over the dress’s existing collar and sewed two wristlets to match. We added a lovely pastel purple semi sheer crinoline to go under the dress. White lace gloves would adorn her hands and be worn just under the newly sewn wristlets. The bottom layer was a sequined and beaded pink bra, electric blue lace boy short panty, hot pink garter belt, and purple and white striped stockings. The final reveal would be a pair of lovely storm cloud pasties custom created for the piece by Lily O’ Lei. We finished the look off with a pink satin ribbon around the waist of the dress, a cotton candy blue parasol, and wonderful sad clown makeup. Add music, choreography, and clothing removal… and BOOM! We had ourselves a killer burlesque act! I choreographed a cute and flirty bit of movement to help our character along and threaded in our peels and removals. Complete with confetti rain, film day was a blast!