C U LT U R E
BY RACHAEL CARNES
RACHEL DAWN MODELS THE SUN COSTUME
FROM THE 1993 PRODUCTION CHIMERA
LISSY IRONS
IN STEAMPUNK
LOOK FROM
2009‘S AROUND
THE WORLD IN
80 DAYS
ANGEL MCNABB-
LYONS SPORTS
DESIGN FROM
AROUND THE
WORLD IN 80
DAYS
PHOTOS BY ATHENA DELENE
FORTY YEARS AND
COUNTLESS COSTUMES
Fashion and theater collide for Alexandra Bonds’ historic runway show
at the UO’s Hope Theatre
A
lexandra Bonds’ retrospective costume fashion
show this weekend, Portfolio, promises a lively
look back at nearly four decades of stitching,
with 40 garments leaping from literature to the
runway each night.
“We started with our favorites, and curated a selection
from there,” says Bonds, a costume designer, UO professor
emerita and historian. “I knew that because it was a fashion
show, what we’d focus on were flashy, beautiful pieces.”
We’re in the basement of Villard Hall, where a gray
windowless room has become a delightful repository,
stuffed to the rafters with Bonds’ work from her 38-year
career constructing costumes and educating students in
the fine art of how to do so.
Theater buffs might see a Lady Bracknell hanging
among the stock, or a Sir Anthony Absolute, or maybe a
Chimera or two. It’s a bountiful collection: Colorful,
textural, with myriad shapes and silhouettes.
“I’m inspired by the work of Vivienne Westwood and
Alexander McQueen,” Bonds says. “And it’s an interesting
circle, presenting these costumes in a fashion show when
the costumes themselves were so inspired by those
fashion designers.”
Bonds herself is influential. Many designers working
in the Eugene performing arts got their start in Bonds’
costume shop, learning to vision, draw, construct, sew,
dye and fabricate just about anything that the work at
hand calls upon.
When asked how she feels to see her students go on to
their own success onstage, Bonds beams. “Like a proud
parent,” she says.
Though Bonds is quick to credit the generations of
student workers who designed and sewed countless
costumes under her careful tutelage, the garments on
display for Portfolio are all hers: The work includes a
black, white and multicolor number from 1996’s A
Servant of Two Masters, an outfit befitting a Harlequin.
“Based in Commedia dell’arte, the character
traditionally looked different than everyone else,” she
says. “The challenge was to create unity onstage within
this different world.”
Bonds traces the quilted edges from a skirt for a 1983
production of The Merchant of Venice:
“It’s a Seminole patchwork, reflecting the inlaid
marble patterns of Italian Renaissance flooring,” she says.
“I think it was the first time that I really was able to bring
together metaphor, with texture and line,” she says.
Also on the runway, watch for Bonds’ work for A
Midsummer’s Night Dream — “a wild New Orleans
hangover, with lots of nasty fairies” — as well as
costumes from Love Will Shake, which were exhibited
internationally.
And you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Eugene
who knows more about fashion history than Bonds. It’s a
fascinatingly relevant topic, suggestive of social,
economic and political change.
So what’s her all-time favorite fashion moment?
“I have to go to the Tudors because of the richness of
the surfaces, the ruffs, lace, blackwork, the jewels and
embroidery,” Bonds says.
She’s also attracted to the rounded hoop skirts of the
late 19th century, and the earlier Regency era. “It’s really
beautiful,” Bonds says. “With the tailcoats for men,
colored breeches, hats and long coats.”
“But my favorite era used to be the one I was working
within,” she says.
Portfolio will feature Flex Dance Company, also
wearing Bonds’ originals, and a sound score by UO
graduate Shawn Kahl. A book of Bonds’ designs will be
for sale at the event.
The main attraction, without a doubt, is the 40-plus
costumes brought to life by approximately 18 volunteer
models, both men and women.
Bonds says she didn’t worry about gender specificity
when assigning garments, but instead went with who fit
the costumes. “I didn’t want to do all those alterations,”
she says with a chuckle. ■
COSTUME DESIGNER
ALEXANDRA BONDS
WITH ONE OF HER
DESIGNS
Portfolio will be presented 7 pm Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14 and 15, at
the Hope Theatre, University of Oregon Campus; $10-$25. Tickets
available through silverliningproduction.com
PHOTO BY TRASK BEDORTHA
eugeneweekly.com • October 13, 2016
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