The Big Interview
owning an Ariel doll in childhood, to embroidering Ariel’s iconic wedding dress for the live action remake. Twan had spoken of the impact owning the Ariel doll had in his early childhood, saying: “Because of having that doll, I took it to school, and that’s why I started to get bullied. I loved having these dolls, but at the same time, having that Ariel doll at the beginning when I was so young really made my life difficult as a child at school.” After hearing his childhood experiences, I asked Twan if his younger self would have believed the success his older self would come to discover. Twan answered: “I don’t know if my younger self would have believed it, that this could happen, or even that I could be happy as myself.”
Twan’s recreation of the Habit à la Française worn by Otto Baron van Randwijck
embroidery skills floated to the surface, working on embroidering the wedding dress for arguably Disney’s most famous mermaid, Ariel. Propelling the job to another plain of romanticism was Twan’s recollection of The Little Mermaid being the first film he remembered seeing in the cinemas, as well as Ariel being his first doll. Twan said: “There’s such a history behind why I really wanted to work on The Little Mermaid. Working on Ariel’s costumes, designed by Colleen Atwood, for me was like a dream come true.”
Twan spoke of one of his favourite moments from the project: watching the final shot of the film as Halle Bailey walked towards the sunset, wearing his very own embroidery. Twan said: “Out in Sardinia, I got to watch when they were shooting the final shot of the film when Triton pushes away the boat. “We were standing quite close to where the action was happening and there was a speaker right next to us blasting the last notes of the music, and the very first shot of seeing Halle Bailey in the dress I embroidered in the sun made me tear up. It was such a magical moment to hear those final beats of the music, and then seeing that happen right in front of you.” The Little Mermaid had an amazingly circular effect on Twan’s life, from
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It was inspirational to listen to Twan speak on the many pieces he had a hand in embroidering for the Walt Disney Studios remake. Twan explained: “I did some embroidery for Vanessa’s shoes, which are the tentacles, because they still wanted to have a reflection of her. I also did some of the embroidery for Rosa, a maid who works in Prince Eric’s castle. They had this original 1970s bedspread with hand embroidery, so they then asked me to replicate some of it because they had to have a second dress and there wasn’t enough of the embroidery.”
However, the work for Twan didn’t just end there. Not only had Twan worked on the costumes for Disney’s live action Ariel, Halle Bailey, but he also worked on a blouse for the voice of the original 1989 Ariel, Jodi Benson. There is something aptly poetic about the past and present Disney princesses meeting in the work of Twan. Little did Twan know that his work on The Little Mermaid would lead him to earn work on another iconic wedding dress; this time, for Netflix’s Queen Charlotte.
A dress fit for a Queen… Charlotte
The story of Twan working on Queen Charlotte all began in Sardinia, while on the set of The Little Mermaid, where he would meet Marco Alzari. Marco, the Italian supervisor for The Little Mermaid’s costume team, would later
be the man to recommend Twan to Laura Frecon, the co-designer for Queen Charlotte, after he was amazed by execution of Twan’s embroidered work. With respect to creative liberty, Queen Charlotte has a fascinating relationship with history, being set in a fictionalised historical time period. Twan mentioned: “Especially with something like Queen Charlotte, even though it is set within a historical time, it is a fantasy world, so you can do whatever you want.
“I did two dresses for one of the princesses; there was a double wedding in the regency time. There is this nice book with original embroidery drawings; it’s in black and white and follows shapes that were used at the time. I looked at pictures from that and thought this design might work well with the dress. Because of time restraints, I only used one colour of thread; it ran in one whole frame and was one thread cut so it would be quick, but because of all the different directions as well of the lights, you would get so much variation in the colour.”
I asked Twan what pieces of his would viewers of the show be able to spot, not expecting Twan to name two of the most iconic costumes from the show: Queen Charlotte’s wedding dress and King George’s coronation suit; both spectacular feats with respect to art and design. However, Twan surprisingly expressed his astonishment
Buttons embroidered by Twan for the film, Chevalier, designed by Oliver Garcia
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