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Blue fabric covered with silver lamé netting, with pointed netting ruffles at the neck, cuffs, hips and knees. The suit is decorated all over with metallic piping and embroidered ribbon, beads of plastic, metal, glass, and pearlescent plastic, and flower/star shapes made of pointed netting ruffles surrounding centres of metallic blue fabric and beads. The underlayer of blue is decorated with leaf motifs, made of metallic blue and silver fabric and hand-drawn with blue ink.\n<b>Hat:</b>\nA cream felt conical hat with cotton hatband and lining.\n<b>Tights:</b>\nA pair of grey lycra tights with glittery silver swirled inserts down the fronts of the legs. There are small blue plastic crystals sewn onto the legs.\n<b>Shoes:</b>\nSilver metallic leather ballet pump style shoes with rounded toe and a low block heel. They have wooden soles which have been painted a darker metallic silver. They are lined with beige coloured canvas, and each shoe has text stamped on the inner sole. 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Wooden soles. Lined with canvas and stamped inside.","categories":[{"text":"David Bowie Archive","id":"THES394093"},{"text":"Entertainment and 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"},{"content":"FENSTON\r\nGRETCHEN","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Embroidered in grey thread on inside of hat"}],"objectHistory":"This costume, often referred to as the 'Pierrot' or 'Blue Clown' costume, has come to be one of the most iconic looks of David Bowie's career.\r\n\r\nBowie first encountered the character of Pierrot in Lindsey Kemp's 1967 mime production<i> Pierrot in Turquoise. </i>A stock character formed across centuries of Commedia Dell'Arte and pantomime traditions, Pierrot has come to signify sadness, naivety, alienation and the ridiculous. In the production, Lindsey Kemp played the titular role, while Bowie played the part of 'Cloud', a narrator and voice for Pierrot's inner thoughts. Russian designer Natasha Korniloff designed the costumes for this production.\n\nIn 1976, Bowie described himself as the following:\n'I’m Pierrot, I’m Everyman. What I’m doing is Theatre and only Theatre…What you see on stage isn’t sinister, it’s pure clown. I’m using my face as a canvas and trying to paint the truth of our time on it. The white face, the baggy pants – they’re Pierrot, the eternal clown putting over the great sadness…'\n\nIn 1980, Bowie was planning the production of a music video for his new single 'Ashes to Ashes'; a lyrical sequel to 'Space Oddity' in which the character of Major Tom finds himself lost in addiction and madness and stranded in space. Bowie plays three characters in the music video; Pierrot the Clown, an astronaut, and an asylum inmate, each inhabiting a melancholic, eerie, dreamlike world. \n\nIn a direct link back to his mime background, Bowie commissioned Natasha Korniloff to make the Pierrot costume, requesting that she make him 'the most beautiful clown in the circus'.  This resulting silver and blue, shimmering, reflective costume, with its jagged, deconstructed harlequin feathers, has become one of Bowie's most recognisable looks. The costume is also depicted on the final album cover artwork for <i>Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). </i>\n\n\n\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Costume designed by Natasha Korniloff for David Bowie for the 'Ashes to Ashes' music video and the front cover of <i>Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps),</i> 1980","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[{"text":"Album: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)","id":"AUTH401603"}],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["S.300:1-2024","S.300:2-2024","S.300:3-2024","S.300:4-2024","S.300:5-2024"],"accessionNumberNum":"300","accessionNumberPrefix":"S","accessionYear":2024,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"David Bowie Archive Number","id":"THES394108"},"number":"1980.2037.0001"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-07-31","recordCreationDate":"2024-03-19","availableToBook":false}}