creates Her Majesty’s Coronation Dress

Heather Coad will be graduating from The Arts University College at Bournemouth with a BA (Hons) Costume with Performance design. Within her degree she has taken a pathway into costume making as well as supervising and backstage work within the theatre industry. Throughout her degree she has created garments for a variety of performances including costumes from the 17th, 18th and 19th century. Heather has greatly increased her Pattern cutting skills and become skilled in areas such as period costume making, ballet, corsetry, basic tailoring and couture dressmaking. Heather is presently preparing her portfolio to join the Theatre industry within London’s West End.

  

Heather Coad was commissioned to create a recreation and interpretation of the Queen’s Coronation Dress to be exhibited at The Ancient Parish Church of All Hallows, Kirkburton, Huddersfield. As the project does not have the money that was required to make an exact copy of the Queen’s dress it has been recreated as more of a theatrical costume/ exhibition piece to highlight the beautiful cut and decoration of the unforgettable dress.

Heather has used techniques such as screen printing and foiling to create the impression of embroidery, beading and pearling. The screen printing has then been worked into many areas to create a visually appealing garment that represents the design and feel of the original. Heather has taken on a small team of other students at The Arts University College at Bournemouth to help her with this recreation, including her head embroiderer Helen Hodges who has recreated the original embroidery superbly considering that a lot less time and money was to hand.