Maizie Hardy
Telling stories with needle and thread
Maizie Hardy is a costume designer and maker who lives in Hay-on-Wye. She attained a First-Class Honours degree in costume construction at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London in 2021 and since then has been working within costume for films and TV.
What made you choose to create costumes?
My love for creating costumes is driven by a meticulous eye for detail, for accurate construction and in scrupulous research when interpreting and creating a design. I am also passionate about storytelling through costumes and the transformative power it gives, transporting the weaver and the viewer to another place and time of absolute belief.
You have written that there is a commitment at the heart of your work in celebrating authentic skills and techniques. Can you tell us more about this?
This could be individually knotting silk threads to create a Rococo fly fringe for an 18th century gown that was made for a private commission or seeking out the advice and specific skills of an artisan bobbin lace maker, block printer or jeweller. It is intrinsic to my work that traditional and heritage craftsmanship is celebrated and kept alive.
You’ve also mentioned that you love to ‘repurpose’ fabrics. Can you give some examples?
Yes, for example it could be dyeing 1940s woollen blankets with logwood to make a Stuart era peasant dress or using rescued antique velvet curtains to make a Regency jacket. More recently for the Apple TV series The Buccaneers, I repurposed diamanté brooches, jewellery and salvaged trims to embellish costumes.
For the project Le Théâtre de la Mode et de la Nature, you have been commissioned by BOTANY and other stories to create a series of wooden puppets. So far you have been working on people – how different was it to adapt your various skills to miniature models which don’t move?
Working in miniature and making clothes and costumes for puppets that are 12 inches is extremely different. Some days it was gloriously fiddly and others maddeningly so! Fabrics and materials don’t work or sit the same as they would for a human body so throughout this I’ve constantly had to come up with solutions, either finding material and fabric alternatives or altering the scaled down patterns. For instance, as I was working with denim when making the Georgian gown for ‘The Lady of the Meadows’, I had to hugely alter and reconstruct the historical robe à la française pattern to reduce material bulk so that the design retained its elegance.
Rumour has it that you’re working on a new project in the near future. Is it a secret?
It is only half a secret – it’s going to be an artisan clothiers and workwear brand. I can already give its name: Medlar.
