espresso | costume design

In a show like ESPRESSO, the costume design can come across as deceptive in its simplicity, but there is still a lot of time and thought that goes into the design.  Below are the preliminary research pictures our designer, Naomi Sider, came up with, as well as some of her thoughts on what she wanted to do with the designs.

Some notes from Naomi on the final design:

For Lucia's first dress, I wanted to bring in some vibrant colour. The set is full of metallic colours and hard edges, like the world Rosa sees that is suddenly dangerous for our fragile selves. In contrast to that, I chose for her a bright teal colour that is a flowy rayon. In the midst of Rosa's crisis she is a living, sensual being. The colour choice seemed like it was meant to be when we found the exact shade of green-blue in our shoes.

For the second dress, the colour was determined by the script. Some design decisions for that dress came from the functional necessities of being dressed onstage by another actor. It could not be fussy. The simple lines ensure that Rosa is the focus of our attention, and they reflect her grief.