Love Should Not Divide: A Post For Phans

Dear Reader,

If you're reading this, then you probably are a Phan. And as a Phan, you have probably seen, listened to, or at least heard of the new sequel to "Phantom of the Opera".

That's right. "Love Never Dies".

The Garnier Enterprise was first founded in order to be able to make costumes from both the stage and the 2004 movie version of Phantom of the Opera for its Phans. Of course, we eventually decided to offer science fiction costumes and old-style dresses as well, but we still specially cater to the Phans (Droney is a Phan herself, while Plaz has yet to see the movie or the show). This little business has special ties to Phantom of the Opera, and whether we like or not, Phantom of the Opera now has ties to Love Never Dies.

There are people out there who enjoy Love Never Dies, and are part of a group called "Love Shouln't Die" (LSntD). Then there are the people who are avidly against Love Never Dies and want the show completely shut down. These people are part of the "Love Should Die" (LSD) group. Naturally, there have been many conflicts between these two groups within the Phandom. Both sides love Phantom of the Opera, but each side has its own opinion of the sequel. Because of this, a gap has formed between them; a split has occurred in the once-unified Phandom. Unless it is addressed and fixed, this gap will be the destruction of an amazing fandom, and will cause those who are not a part of it to turn their heads away.

This is why The Garnier Enterprise is encouraging you, the Phan reading this post, to help us fight against the Flame War that is taking place in the Phandom and bring unity once again. "How can we do this?" It's simple. Already, members from LSD and LSntD have come together and created a forum; a safe haven for members from both sides, and even the intbetweeners, to go and have discussions without having to fear being flamed, tormented, teased, or harassed for their beliefs. Click the link below to go to the forum:

Love Shoud Not Divide Forums

Do what it takes to save your Phandom from complete destruction.

Sincerely,

Droney (and Plaz)

Why so silent, good monsieurs?

Hi all!

Welcome to the second official post on The Garnier Enterprise’s humble little blog. We’re terribly sorry that we’ve been silent; I’m sure you all understand how real life gets in the way and prevents us from updating the blog, and from working on commissions. Hopefully we will have all our real life issues settled soon, and we can get to work with your commissions! Please hang with us until we are able to do so.

Speaking of commissions, Plaz mentioned in his opening post that we would be posting updates about commissions we are working on as we go along. While we have no official commissions as of yet (we’ve had several people look into it, but alas, we simply cannot dedicate ourselves to say “Yes, we’ll have ______ for you at _______ this time”; soon, though!), we are faithfully doing research for those commissions we have been asked about. Our main priority right now is a request for a feminine version of the Phantom’s “Red Death” costume from The Phantom of the Opera. It has been very challenging on our creative juices, that’s for sure! We don’t have a final draft yet, but we did finish two sketches with some basic ideas for what we could do. So if you’re interested in what Plaz and Droney have thought up for a feminine “Red Death”, keep on reading!

The first design is one that Plaz dubbed “Pirate/Spanish Inquisitor Red Death” (as seen above). It starts off with a fitted bodice. In the picture above, it has gold lacing on the front for looks only (we might eventually do a corset design, we are unsure at this moment). As you can see, it’s a v-neck; it scoops down nice and low to show off some of those more feminine features (this is, after all, the feminine version of Read Death!). It has a nice, high-topped collar that would be stiff. The fitted bodice is just a vest without sleeves, and is worn over a silk pirate-like shirt. The shirt would be black, while the bodice would be red. 

Plaz also drew a shoulder drape starts (obviously) at the shoulders, and goes all the way back, draping over part of the cape. The shoulder drape would be a few shades darker than the bodice; while the bodice is bright red, we imagine the shoulder drape to be more of a maroon color, possibly made out of velvet. The cape would be a simple cape made out of red fabric (we’re leaning towards velvet at this moment), with gold embroidery that says “Do not touch me, for I am Red Death stalking abroad!”. The sketch above shows that cape is attached at the elbows and wrists, but we are also unsure about this.

The pants would be very form fitting; more like tights, if you will. They’d also be red (this is “Red Death”!) They would most likely be full length, although if one wore boots like Plaz has drawn in the sketch, they could go by with just partial-length tights.

The costume is completed with black leather boots, a black scarf that is not attached to anything, flared, black leather gloves, and the awesome wide-brimmed hat with feathers attached to it as seen in the stage show. The hat at this point is red (maybe a little darker than the bodice and pants but not quite as dark as the shoulder drape) with a single black feather and gold trim.

The second design that Plaz sketched (Plaz did the sketching and Droney colored them) is titled “Spanish Dancer Red Death”. Plaz noted that the original Red Death costume from the stage show was heavily influenced by Spanish fashion, and decided to try making a design out of a Spanish dress.

As you can see in the photo above, this is a one-piece dress. It contains a fitted bodice (most likely red!) that goes down into a frilled, layer skirt. We have no exact amount of layers in mind at this point, as it would all depend on how long the buyer would want their dress to be. In the sketch, Plaz has the dress to about mid-calf. This could be changed easily, either by adding or subtracting layers, or taking/adding length to each layer. The skirt part of the dress is split down the side; the split would start about mid-thigh and continue all the way down the dress.  Moving back to the top of the dress, you’ll see that Plaz has drawn “frills around chest and wrists”. The current design has the sleeves long, and frilled out at the end. The dress is bright red, and each layer of the skirt is ended with gold trim. There'd also be gold trim around the edge of the ruffled sleeves, and in between the back layer and the red layer of the chest ruffles. 

The costume is topped off (quite literally) with the same stage show hat with feathers and gold trim, a black scarf worn around the elbows and behind the back, black fabric flowers sewed off-center at the bottom of the bodice, and high-heeled shoes. 

 

Forgive our artistic attempts; Plaz can sketch, but Droney ruined his beautiful sketches with her poor watercolor skills. We still have the black and white versions of the sketches if anyone prefers to see those.

Feel free to leave comments and suggestions!

Your costumers,

Plaz and Droney


(P.S Sorry for the bad scan quality; Plaz's scanner works great, but mine didn't scan the watercolors all that well. TT_TT ~Droney)

A new weblog has appeared!

This is the first post of the soon-to-be-world-famous Garnier Enterprise. Droney and I have really wanted to get into costuming as a hobby. We both love makin' stuff, but more importantly we love staying up into the wee hours of the morning pinning fabric and eating junk food and drawing patterns and watching reruns of old TV shows (for best results, do all of this simultaneously).

Thanks to real life, we're not yet totally set up where we can work on commissions, but we are definitely taking preorders. It should be a few weeks (possibly a bit longer if fate frowns upon us) before we can actually buckle down and start work, but if you've got a commission interest, feel free to let us know. Right now the email address to contact us at is: disconnecteddrone@gmail.com. Sometime soon we'll change that and get a dedicated inbox just for commissions and talkin' business.

Until then, watch this space! This site is still a new creation, and as such it's got some changes to undergo before it's totally polished up, so do bear with us.

And remember that we love you.