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I love the Siren Venus: it seems to me fully appropriate for the role...

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I love the Siren Venus: it seems to me fully appropriate for the role...

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Elisabetta Nucifora

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Although this is not a costume, I would go for the sixteenth-century painting known as the Pontormo Venus and Cupid (created from a lost drawing or cartoon by Michelangelo) for two reasons: a) for its boldness by its contemporary standards and b) because of the fascinating detail with the two masks which to my view projects the malleability of identity that could very well tie in with lack of constancy (given the painting's focus on Venus and Cupid). As both a and b are related to Wroth's play and life, I believe it is a highly fitting choice!

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(with apologies to Durga)

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Venus and Cupid - before

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I imagined Venus in a long red dress - maybe like a 40s Hollywood siren. I lack any artistic skills, but this Google image is a reasonable approximation

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I don't think I can improve on Bronzino's version in the National Gallery.

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Something like this? Edward's Boys in Lyly's Galatea (Globe 2014 experiment)

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Something like this? Edward's Boys in Lyly's Galatea (Globe 2014 experiment)

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Simple costumes (played at home in a country house, after all) but Classical/otherworldly - and Cupid has a bow, of course

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I designed and made the costume up - this is a modern Venus, as a temptress. Dressed in black so that she can operate under the cover of night.

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Laced up heart bodice, high heeled boots, criss-cross thonged arms, garter, whip

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Cupid is like a huntsmen with a smear of black charcoal across his eyes and small wings coming out of his back.

Venus has a French style head-dress from the Tudor period (thus antiquated and out of date) with emblems of nature in her hair and on her dress. She has a heard painted onto her face.

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I saw Cupid as a mischievous elf or forest Sprite, but with a Robin Hood element. His clothes are more natural earthy colours than Venus' but are still essentially Tudor. He has a bow and arrows and a tricksy grin .

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I wanted Venus to be a mix of the Queen of Hearts and a Tudor lady, so that she would already look traditional to a Stuart audience. I envisaged a heavy ivory brocade gown with black lace embroidery, a velvet cloak a red silk sash and a Tudor hood.

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I was envisioning a story where Venus is the head of a tech startup so that she can reassert her control over people's love lives. In this case, the app that connects one with other people blindly takes on a personality of its own. The goal of this setting is to connect the character of Venus and the classical setting with the ways in which algorithms guide our behavior from behind the scenes.

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I was envisioning a story where Venus is the head of a tech startup so that she can reassert her control over people's love lives. In this case, the app that connects one with other people blindly takes on a personality of its own. The goal of this setting is to connect the character of Venus and the classical setting with the ways in which algorithms guide our behavior from behind the scenes.

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For costume, I would then reverse the direction and present Venus in an unassuming, dark sweatshirt a la Zuckerberg

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Think I’d go for something modern and ‘quite in your face’ so a sort of Kinky Boots meets The Village People type look! I’d definitely have a mobile phone as a key part of Venus’ character. The phone would act as the mirror so that Venus can reflect herself in the phone and also be a way to communicate with Cupid. Venus can ‘be’ the phone – you can hear her voice through it, she can be an app, she can appear on screen etc. I’d have her in long heeled boots and then somehow give the illusion of being naked under whatever she was wearing on top – perhaps draped chiffon to look like a classical robe?  She needs to look provocatively sexy but also quite hard and in control and I’d have her playing with all sorts of sex toys and bondage gear. I’d want to include scallop shells and pomegranates in some sort of headdress. 

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Staged as a masque. Images from NZ’s World of Wearable Art.  Designs for  Venus and Cupid.

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My Venus will represent the night sky