Image courtesy of Ballet Hispanico
When thinking of career transitions, rarely do you hear of someone who transitions from classical musician to fashion designer to stage costume designer. And even more rare is the segue to designing for elite American dance companies—Alvin Ailey American Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, just to name a few.
Well, Mark Eric is just that breakout artist. Following the beat of his own drum, Mark Eric made that precarious transition and is rapidly becoming one of the emerging go-to costume designers for dance companies. Though not a Santo Loquasto or Barbara Karinska, two legendary dance costume designers, quite yet Mark is certainly on his way. And his design acumen will be front and center in Ballet Hispanico’s new production of “Dona Peron.”
Mark Eric took out time from his busy schedule to talk to Fashion Reverie about his art, his craft, and his love of all things beautiful.
Mark Eric
Fashion Reverie: You are graduate of FIT and started out designing for several fashion houses. Could you talk about that?
Mark Eric: My background is in classical music and played for operas and musicals. I become entranced with the stage costumes of the productions where I worked as a musician. I graduated my music program for the University of the Pacific, while there I worked in the costume design department at my university. And decided after graduation that I wanted to become a fashion designer.
I received a career transition opportunity at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). The program is a concentrated, one-year program. The program at FIT is for people who are looking to transition into a career in fashion after having worked in another field or discipline.
After graduating from FIT, I went into an internship and my fashion concentration was women’s eveningwear. And that where I mostly stayed for the bulk of my fashion design career.
FR: Which New York City fashion houses did you design for?
Mark Eric: I worked for Marchesa and worked also for Monique Lhuillier. It found it very interesting working for Monique Lhuillier in that I traveled between Los Angeles and New York City frequently. I loved that she had her clothes made in the US.
I worked for Monique Lhuillier for four years, mostly on her diffusion line. But after working for Lhuillier for four years, I concluded that fashion design, particularly ladies’ eveningwear, was not for me.
FR: Transitioning from designing luxury evening to creating stage costumes is a huge move. How did that all come about?
Mark Eric: I did like working for Monique Lhuiller, it was really inspiring, sourcing all the fabric; however, I missed working for the arts. The business of fashion is based mostly on commerce and can get grubby. At the end of the day, fashion is about mass consumption. I had fantasized about fashion through the lens of haute couture of the 1950s and 60s and fashion has moved way past that.
So, I made the decision to step away from fashion and regroup. And did all this with no job, no next opportunity. I just took the leap and followed my heart, which was a year of soul searching.
My first position outside of fashion was working as wardrobe supervisor for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. I got the job six month after I applied and I did not expect to hear anything, but they finally contacted me. They were willing to work with me and what I could bring to that position.
Image courtesy of timeout.com
FR: Your bio details that you work with specific choreographers, namely Robert Battle, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Rennie Harris, and others. Why the association with these choreographers?
Mark Eric: I found great mentorship while working for Ailey and the folks at Ailey helped me on the path to finding out what I really wanted to do. While I was at Ailey, I made great connections that served me well as I segued from wardrobe director to costume designer. Many of the choreographers I work with, I met while working at Ailey because they were creating new ballets for the Ailey company.
I happen to work with a wide variety of choreographers who are developing work in their realm. The huge dichotomy of dance idioms that these choreographers work in keeps me always searching for new ways in which the stage costumes can push the story forward and adapt to all the different dance styles.
FR: When you are creating stage costumes for a new dance work, are you sketching and sewing all the costumes, or do you have a team that assist you throughout this process?
Mark Eric: Every process is different, and I work with dance companies that are at various levels of organization from grassroots dance companies to companies that have great resources, like American Ballet Theatre. Ballet X, out of Philadelphia, is medium-sized dance company so their resources can be a little limited; however, I can still produce functional, great stage costumes for dance companies at that level.
At the bigger dance companies, it is more about leading the process from concept, sketch, and research to final product, than sewing the costumes myself. I can employee garment builders in the industry to help realize my vision. I am fortunate to work with four great costume houses—Eric Winterling, Jon Christensen, Colin Davis Jones, and Bethany Joy Costumes.
Sketches courtesy of Mark Eric
FR: Do you have to consider different fabric choices when designing for dancers, and if so, why?
Mark Eric: The primary function of designing dance costumes for the stage is that the costumes do not limit the range of movement of the dancer, especially when it comes to contemporary dance because no movement expression is off the table. There may be a more limited range of movement in ballet of the Petipa period. However, in contemporary dance, the dancer could be tossed in the air in an unusual way or be balled up on the floor and turned upside down. There are no restrictions on the dance lexicon.
For Ballet Hispanico’s “Dona Peron,” I had a particular challenge because this ballet lives in the realm of theatre and contemporary dance. “Dona Peron’s” choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is all about storytelling, and she tells the story of this epic historical figure, Eva Peron.
It was a big move on Ballet Hispanico’s part not to reference the movie or the musical “Evita.” In other words, they wanted to recoat the story. Their Eva Peron story is coming out of their own vision.
For “Dona Peron,” the fabrics must move and stretch with the dancers and the fabrics must also maintain a certain structure because the dance work will be performed several times. It is a definite challenge to find fabrics that relate to the story and reflect that period, but also the dancers can perform in.
Although spandex has a lot of stretch and durability, I did not want to use spandex because Eva Peron was a very elegant woman and would not wear spandex. Luckily, the fabric industry is creating more stretchable fabrics.
FR: What fabric choices or blends did you use for “Dona Peron”?
Mark Eric: The military outfits have military regalia for the male-presenting corps de ballet. We had to find fabrics that looked wool. We could not use wool because wool does not work well with sweat and water. We used cotton blends and fabrics that had a small percentage of cotton wool.
I also like to use crepe fabric that resembles wool. And you can now find great Japanese crepe fabrics. They are a little expensive, but what you get for the price, the fabrics works out very well. And some of the Japanese crepes have a bit of stretch from the lycra blend in the crepes.
For women-presenting dancers we used similar cotton blends and stretch lycra. We use a bobbing net which is a kind of crepe tulle. We also developed boned corsets for the ladies in some of the costumes, which is a nod to the classical ballet world. The costume is a romantic tutu of sorts. It is similar to the Dior silhouette of the late 1940s.
Images courtesy of Mark Eric
FR: Where you inspired by the silhouettes of the late 1940s and 50s for “Dona Peron”?
Mark Eric: We did look at the actual images of Eva Peron from that era. However, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa wanted to abstract that 1940s and 50s look so that the stage costumes would not be a direct representation of that period. We felt the “Evita” stage and film productions had done an excellent job presenting Eva Peron of that period, so we did not want to copy that.
FR: What’s next for you?
Mark Eric: I am moving directly into my next project which is designing stage costumes for another dance work. I have three new ballets for Ballet X that need costumes, one of those ballets is a work by Anabelle Lopez Ochoa, and a ballet with Jamar Roberts. My next big scale work is for the Paul Taylor Dance Company in the fall.
—William S. Gooch
Speak Your Mind