Interview with Carl Bonn and Colin Mackenzie, costume makers

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Carl Bonn and Colin Mackenzie were considered the best costumiers in the business, acclaimed for their cut, decoration and feeling for line, plus the ability to make actors look and feel their best. 

Bonn, born in 1912, studied at Wimbledon Art School and the Royal Academy. His interest was in historical dress and he became resident costume designer with various repertory theatres, cutting and making costumes to his own designs. Mackenzie, born in 1926, was taught to sew by his parents, who were both in the rag trade. He left art school to study architecture before serving his theatrical apprenticeship as a set designer in repertory theatres.

They set up business with £100, a sewing machine and their repertory theatre contacts.They led the way for a new generation of freelance costumiers, introducing better cutting and conception of the whole. Bonn's cutting was so meticulous that he could cut from measurements alone and it would fit perfectly first time. Mackenzie added the exuberant, imaginative decoration. Originally, historical accuracy was dominant, but became modified under the influence of contemporaries like Barbara Gray (now Barbara Matera), whose making was less precise but more theatrical. Their art training affected how they saw and interpreted designs.

Their baptism of fire came in 1955, working on 'King Lear', designed by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and 'Much Ado About Nothing', designed by Mariano Andreu.

Noguchi produced tiny paper figures instead of designs: 'Like those little paper dollies.' recalled Bonn. 'You took off her pinny and she had a dress underneath….They could have been very beautiful if we'd known more what we were doing and he'd kept out of the way.' The fabrics were stiffened felt, India rubber and leather. The actors couldn't kneel down without holding the costumes down or else their heads disappeared into the necks. Mackenzie warned the director that only stylized fighting was possible in the leather costumes. Nor were things helped by actors using Japanese short swords. 'Come the dress rehearsal, they had a normal fight, falling on the floor, on top of these great leather, felt, stiffened things, which bent and buckled - Noguchi sat in the audience and roared with laughter ... I could have killed him.'  

Andreu's approach was very different.'… he'd pick up a piece of gold sweet paper off the floor,' recalled Mackenzie, 'and say 'I want zis, sewn on the sleeves …'  It's going to last two seconds - on soldiers who were in the dark at the back and you never even saw.'

The masterly cut and seaming of the costume help give it weight and period style. The decorations use contemporary resins as decoration and appliqués are fixed with adhesives rather than stitching. The areas beneath the corselet are of heavy cotton, thus making the costume more comfortable and reducing bulk. At the shoulders the shaping is beautifully suggested by piping. The high collar ensures  that the performer holds the head high, helping to give the correct period style in movement.

Mackenzie remembers French designer Lila de Nobili as 'Very strange'. She would arrive 'carrying 14 bags … and expect you to make a costume out of about a yard and a half of something she'd bought in the flea market. She wanted to do what she wanted and she always wanted things that were totally impossible. You'd think 'Come on dear. It's theatre.'  You were hung up with this until you bullied her - and you really had to send her up like mad and make jokes, and she loved that.'

An ancillary skill was tactful handling of designers and actors. For Moira Lister in 'Much Ado About Nothing', Andreu had designed a beautifully simple white jersey dress with ribbed sleeves. Mackenzie advised her 'When you get to dress parade … just come on, say 'Lovely' and … she swept on, she said "Mr. Andreu, this is the most beautiful dress - isn't it lovely?', turned round three times, and left. And she got it. Because he would have fiddled about and fiddled about ...' Dorothy Tutin, however, would sit on the floor and think about her costume and a fitting could take hours. They refused to work for Rudolf Nureyev after he tore his costume apart because it fastened down the back and he preferred front fastenings.

As Mackenzie said, '(performers) must be happy or else they're not going to give a good performance.' Fittings were long and tedious, and he skillfully kept actors occupied so that they wouldn't comment too soon. 'Once it's done, then you want to know what they think.' According to Bonn: 'You're in between designer and actor … and you've got to make them both feel they're getting what they want. It's - well - tact.' 

Tactful but positive about their work, they often took over. They bought the fabrics although final choice lay with the designer. 'A lot liked it. A few hated it.' admitted Mackenzie. 'But mostly the much younger (designers), who hadn't gone through a school of rep … they think they know everything, and they hate somebody trying to decide. You say 'No, that won't work' Even in the nicest way, and they say 'Yes it will, I want ...' And you think 'All right, dear, I'll do it. And you'll see. And it won't. And it doesn't.'

Today, designers often work through a production coordinator; this means less direct contact with the makers - "stupid - hopeless - pointless.' raged Mackenzie 'And you would get it second-hand. Unless you can really talk together, properly, you might as well not bother. The shows one always enjoyed were the ones where everybody was working together as a team and you were all doing your own bit and trying to help all the others. And that always worked and produced a good show.

Suzanne Adams. From an interview with Carl Bonn and Colin Mackenzie recorded in their home and workrooms 24 Betterton Street, in Covent Garden, London, , September 1996