Inspiration struck for Mordonna as I reminisced about my favourite childhood characters. Mordonna Flood is a main character in Colin Thompson's children’s book series The Floods, a series I was very fond of as a child - even going dressed as Mordonna to my grade 3 book fair in a costume my mother handmade for me. I adore the characters eccentricity along with her subtle references to Morticia Addams from Charles Addams' television and film series The Addams Family.
Mordonna Flood is the mother of six children and is consistently described as a stunningly beautiful woman. She happily engages in her stay-at-home mother lifestyle, she does not need a job because she is a witch and her husband Nerlin is much the same. They are described as very loving parents and as having the same sort of lifestyle as many typical Australian families despite the minor changes that come along with being a family of witches and wizards. Her style, along with the majority of the rest of her family is to wear all black - however, Mordonna also has splashes of red in her characters outfit which is generally loose fitting and consists of a long, loose red dress with a long cardigan-like outer garment.
My sketch of Colin Thompson's 'Mordonna' Character
When re-imaging this characters costume I considered more adult themes be explored, much like myself growing older I wanted to reflect the book as something that has aged with me. I aimed to infuse more of Morticia Addams' sensual aura by creating a piece with a lot more feminine shaping of the bust and waist, hugging the hip curves and accentuating the female form more than what is displayed on book covers and in picture books such as Colin Thompsons The Floods Family Files (published in 2007). After all, she is a mother of seven children and although it is explored in the book series that these children were made in a cellar instead of being naturally conceived I felt it appropriate for Mordonna to be looked at as retaining a womanly figure. Mordonna is a witch and overall very crafty which leads me to imagine her being more adorned with embellishments and having her costume appear more regal rather than relying on plainer shapes and colours.
The costume I have designed consists of a corset bodice which is embellished with glass seed beads around the top V edge, it will hopefully have a waist reduction and be a fully functional corset which provides nice shaping to the hips. This flows on to a floor length skirt with a mermaid like cut, hugging around the hips and flaring out just above the knees. There is also quite a high slit so some leg can poke out. There is also a jacket-like piece that is put on after the corset, which stops above it but provides neck coverage and sleeves, which have incredibly long tails and are a design feature I retained from the book. It also features a long flowing cape like attachment at the back as I felt it needed some more body but also wanted to be able to see everything underneath. Finally, I kept her witches hat as this is a defining feature of her character.
This costume definitely draws more from a fantasy edge than some of my other work and is slightly less rooted in historical clothing - but it is a bit over the top which is something that is seen a lot in royalty or high society throughout various periods in history. I am hoping taking on this project will teach me more about tailoring and corsetry techniques so I focused a lot on incorporating elements that would do this into the final look.
Mordonna's colour palette:
Both the corset and skirt will be the darkest red as a base, I wanted a more muted dull red because whilst I am making Mordonna a bit glamorous I felt having a 'fire-truck red' shade as a large part of her costume would take away from the elegance because of its incredibly stark difference with the black jacket, which is another main part of the costume. The last two shades show the colouring of the seed beads I shall use to embellish the neckline and back of the jacket as well as around the centre V of the corset bodice. The main red colour will also peek out as a lining in the middle of her sleeves.
This project shouldn't require any shaping undergarments to complete so my toiling will start with getting the corset size and shaping correct. Posts should shortly follow this one with information on that.
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