We go store after store and we cut samples. Yes, for a new build, though sometimes we shop in L.A. I probably went to seven stores andĭo you usually do that kind of a trip with the designer? On Saturday, Ginette flew home, and I had the last-minute things to go purchase. Thirty or so.and we visited each several times throughout the week. Sounds like a whirlwind! How many stores did you go to? I hadn’t worked with Ginette before, so I had to get a sense of her work style and her aesthetic-what colors and textures of fabrics she is drawn to.

We worked late into the night every night. It’s a great way to get to know the designer because we’re together 15 hours a day, three meals a day, coffee break if we’re lucky. We spent the week walking the garment district, looking for samples and selecting the fabrics. When did you first meet with Ginette Grenier, the Costume Designer of Nabucco? Since 2002, she has run Seattle Opera’s costume shop with the same eye for detail and an amazing capacity for coordinating her extraordinary team to make a bolt of fabric into the exquisite symbol of a character.

Several years later she co-founded her own company, Period Corsets, which sold handmade undergarments designed for use in theaters, and it was through this work that she learned the nuts and bolts of running a sustainable costume business. She first came to seattle in 1989 to work in Seattle Opera’s costume shop as a cutter. By her college years, she had taught herself to sew, got her first job in a costume shop, and a career was born. Costume Shop Manager Susan Davis grew up abroad-Japan, Ethiopia, Egypt, among other places-and inherited her mother’s love of beautiful textiles.

La opera costume shop