Our Miss Media and costume designer Sophie Lloyd tells about her experiences with Intruders

Costume styling isn’t my day job (I work in fashion journalism, among other things) but I love dressing people up, and there’s something uniquely exciting about being involved in a theater production and seeing it come together. I’ve done the costumes for a number of different theater productions over the years but this is my first time to do it in Buenos Aires, and hopefully not the last.

In terms of the costumes for Intruders, the direction was straightforward. The actors all had to be in their underwear - symbolic of the sense of unease and vulnerability that the characters experience in the play. The men were relatively easy to sort out with simple pairs of boxers (and a pair of hand-sewn sock suspenders) but if you know anything about the shopping scene in Buenos Aires, you’ll know that shopping for simple, demure female underwear is no easy feat, particularly on a tight budget.

I spent many hours trawling the cheap underwear stalls in Once and the lingerie shops down Santa Fe to find the best underwear sets for the three different female characters. If it wasn’t a problem with the style or the color, the shops didn’t have the size we wanted. But, as always, things came together in the end.

The most challenging part of the costume was Sasha’s six-month pregnant belly. Making a realistic looking pregnant belly that’s comfortable to wear is more difficult than it sounds particularly when worn under a thin silky slip that leaves nothing to the imagination. I did a lot of research online, watched numerous YouTube videos and we played around a lot with cotton stuffing, plastic wrap and pairs of sewn up old tights.  Finally, in a stroke of genius, I picked apart a friend’s old travel cushion (the kind you wear around your neck on airplanes) and used the stuffing (lots of tiny white balls) to stuff the top part of a pair of tights (with the legs cut off and sewn up) which made for quite a malleable, texture-less fake belly.  (note: I don’t recommend picking apart a travel cushion unless you really have to. Those little white balls get EVERYWHERE and you’ll spend days sweeping them up).

The next task was to make sure the belly was molded to Sasha’s body to give a natural looking silhouette. In the end, we decided to attach the belly to her with plastic wrap around her waist (Marina Artigas, thanks for the tip) combined with a pair of those ugly high-waisted granny pants that keep your bum and tum tucked in and helped to disguise the texture of the plastic wrap beneath the silk slip. And  voilà! If you look carefully, you’ll even spot a fake belly button too.

Costumes aside, it’s been a great experience to work with a very talented cast and crew and I admire the way they’ve turned a complex script into a very engaging, entertaining performance.

Sophie