singing-a-song-of-angry-men:

Original Costume Designs for the stage adaption of the musical, Les Misérables.

Marius and Cosette

singing-a-song-of-angry-men:

Original Costume Designs for the stage adaption of the musical, Les Misérables.

Cosette

Les Mis Costumes | Javert

Les Misérables costume sketches by Andreane Neofitou, Costume Designer

Les Amis→  background: Joly, Bahorel, Courfeyrac, Lesgles
                    foreground: Feuilly, Grantaire, Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire

Les Mis Costumes | Jean Valjean (photoset here)

Act 1

1. convict “Now bring me prisoner 24601” (Prologue)
2. convict + coat and bag “Freedom is mine” (Prologue)
3. Monsieur le Maire “What is this fighting all about” (At the End of the Day, pictured is Who Am I “two four six oh one!”) closeup
4. Monsiur le Maire w/o coat “Is there anyone here who will rescue the man” (Runaway Cart)
5. brown coat “Hush now do not be afraid of me” (well scene, Montfermeil)
6. grey/purple coat with fur “Please Monsieur, come this way” (Look Down)
7. green waistcoat “Dear Cosette, you’re such a lonely child” (In My Life, worn underneath in Look Down)

Act 2

1. Army coat “Here comes a man in uniform” (First Attack)
2. black waistcoat “She was never mind to keep” (Everyday)
3. white shirt + brown scarf/blanket “Alone at the end of my days” (Epilogue)
4. white shirt “To love another person is to see the face of God” (Epilogue)

Valjean is the individual character with the most changes throughout the show, because the story basically revolves around his tale of redemption and his different stages from a convict to an upright man. Personally I love a lot of his pieces because there’s a lot of purpose to his clothing. For example, on parole he moves around a lot and gets thrown around a bit and his coat moves with him, swaying about angrily. He hunches in that coat which seems a little too big for him, he wants it to hide his convict past but yet he fails because he still faces the same rejection everywhere, and the coat makes him seem even more imposing and threatening. It doesn’t help that his filthy and unkempt appearance scares everyone away as well, so it is particularly moving when the bishop accepts him for who he is. And in contrast, he wears a similar coat to pick up little Cosette, but this time he is clean and purposeful and when he hunches it is to protect her. The coat sways beautifully when he waltzes around with little Cosette and it is just such a lovely, lovely scene. This extends to when he reappears a few minutes later with an older Cosette, his coat makes him look a lot bigger and protective of the girl who a few moments ago was in rags and now all grown-up and beautiful under his care.

He also wears a couple of different waistcoats, as he ages it goes from a patterned one as Monsieur le Maire (he cleans up well and is almost unrecognisable from the previous scene), to a green one in Rue Plumet and to an understated, black one towards the end of the show as he prepares to go away. There’s also the instantly identifiable army uniform because it’s the coat he wears during Bring Him Home. It stands out among the barricades and looks slightly out of place, but it keeps reminding the audience that the only there for Cosette and he would risk going dressed as a member of the army, he would risk anything for the people he loves.

As he is dying he is very weak and he covers himself with a brown blanket. He sheds this as he dies (“To love another person is to see the face of God”), he links hands with Fantine and Eponine and washed over with a bright spotlight. In the brick there’s a lot of imagery to do with light/darkness, and Valjean is absolutely luminous in white by the last scene because he lived a life with love and is redeemed by it. It’s all very, very powerful.

Points of interest:

In the original sketches he has a hat and there’s an OLC photo of Colm Wilkinson wearing it. He doesn’t wear it in the show but carries it with him in the factory scene.

He wears very subdued colours, mostly black/white/brown. Other than as a convict, he almost always wears white underneath his coat/waistcoat and black pants.

He has a “24601” mark on his chest (though recently it’s just a red mark), which appears during the prologue, Who Am I and Look Down.

One of the only ones with many wig changes. He first appears with wild hair as a convict, a neater hairstyle as Monsieur le Maire, ages up in stages from Paris onwards until the Epilogue. Always has a beard, though!

*Apologize for the quality of scans, if you want clearer pictures of anything do ask. Fact checking and opinions welcome!

Les Mis Costumes | Jean Valjean

I’m going to start on my Les Mis costume series from today/tomorrow (and hopefully I’ll finish it)! It won’t be super pretty or anything but I think it will be quite informative. I’m focusing on the current West End production for now, but if there’s enough interest maybe I’ll do other productions in the future. Do note that although it’s the same production costumes still differ slightly from actor to actor, but if there are genuine mistakes please call me out on them! I might also not be able to feature all costumes due to lack of clear photos but if that’s the case I’ll describe them in the writeup.

Tag’s ‘les mis costumes’ if you want to track/save that!

Les Misérables costume sketches by Andreane Neofitou, Costume Designer
Valjean | Cosette | Fantine | Thénardier | Marius | Javert | Thénardiers | Éponine | Enjolras

“Andreane Neofitou’s period costumes—2,800 outfits in all—are splendid and evocative.”