When I learned we’d be publishing an interview with a television costume designer about all the factors that go into clothing actors who film outdoors in Alberta in the dead of winter, I recalled a story I heard years ago about a Vancouver artist who’d designed and made a baby blanket for the show Once Upon a Time.
I caught up with Caitlin Ffrench on Zoom, and she told me how she got started doing textile work for television shows and movies, that she actually made sixteen of those baby blankets (she published a free pattern for the design), and about the time she spent on set once, hiding under a table and wrapped around a famous actor’s legs, making a broken vintage sewing machine appear as if it was working.