{Prospect}

One girl. Prospecting on an toxic alien planet for valuable materials. Fighting off the bad guy; coming of age.

Sound like a movie plot? It is! Recently, I collaborated with SHEP films to create a spacesuit for their upcoming short film, Prospect. Shot in the Hoh rainforest in Washington State, this film promises a unique coming of age story that crosses the spaghetti western with our favorite sci-fi space films. Of course, that description only scratches the surface of this film - click here for more info!

While I typically create ready-to-wear garments, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to flex my costuming muscles and create a garment for this film.

Inspired primarily by early US spacesuit designs (the spacesuit book by the Smithsonian was an invaluable resource!) and directed by the toxic atmosphere on the prospecting planet, our suit evolved to our final product:

Since our girl only needed to combat a toxic atmosphere, we didn’t need a pressurized suit, freeing up some of the material choices. The body of the suit features hand dyed ripstop nylon over a sturdy cotton (I used the procion MX dyes for the first time – I’m probably never going back to RIT!) with bias binding tape accenting the arms, legs and shoulders. The strong lines created by the contrasting color visually increases her perceived physical strength.

Generous gathering and ruching of the lower arms and legs allows for a full range of movement, while still maintaining a lean look overall. The sleeves are finished with elastic and ties, creating a snug fit around the gloves after pulling on the suit.

Each of the zippers in the suit is fully functional, though I hid an invisible zipper in the center back to make it easy for her to get in and out. Each zipper took over 2 hours to install, as each required first stitching down a bias strip facing, cutting through the whole suit (terrifying each time!), turning the facing under and then topstitching each zipper in place. With both zippers between 20-34″ long, it was quite the process to keep everything in place!

Any prospector also needs pockets to place tools and anything they might pick up along the way, so the suit also has three pockets – two on the left side, but only one on the right leg, as I needed to leave room for her gun holster.

Give her some sturdy boots, gloves, a backpack and a helmet fitted with an air purifier and our girl is ready to explore an alien planet.

The film is currently sourcing funding via Kickstarter, so click on over there, watch some incredible test footage and support the film!

All photos courtesy of SHEP Films.

08 Nov This entry was published on November 8, 2012 at 9:58 pm. It’s filed under fashion, orginal designs and tagged fashion, film, independent film, kickstarter, sci-fi, space, western. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.