The Big Interview at seeing his embroidered work on
Queen Charlotte’s iconic wedding dress plastered across the media and across major cities. He explained: “The designer of the dress, Lyn Paolo posted a picture on their Instagram from Los Angeles, and it was 15 storeys high on a building.
“It also popped up on a billboard I drove past. It was surreal. It was also on the front of the Radio Times. It was a weird feeling to see your work printed everywhere.”
Speaking of witnessing your artwork in all forms of media worldwide, Twan began to speak on his work for Universal Pictures’ Wicked, set for release this month.
Wickedly defying embroidery In the same discussion on creative liberty, Twan said: “On Wicked, we had fully realised designs costume designer Paul Tazewell, but there was a freedom in like yes, we had to create those shapes and what you see, but how we do that was our freedom.”
As a long-time fan of Wicked, it was fantastic to listen to Twan’s enthusiasm, especially when he began speaking of the work which went into Fiyero’s waistcoat. Twan began by saying: “It was so much work but we had a lot of freedom. Fiyero turns into the scarecrow, so on the design, he already had wheat stems on his sleeve, which Hattie McGill hand embroidered on his sleeves. But for the waistcoat, there were so many shapes, so I thought how can I incorporate more wheat stems into that?
“What I did was a tatami fill in wool thread and wheat stems in a satin classic Madeira thread on top of it, so you got two different textures and the shininess of the wheat really shows through. If you look close enough, you can see it’s all over his waistcoat, like a hint towards his future. I had help from Jessie Dickinson with the digitising and it was also hand embroidered into by her and Beth Parry.”
An attention to Wicked’s detailing, however, was not new to Twan. Between his second and third year of university, Twan approached Naomi Isaacs, an associate lecturer at UAL, enquiring after work experience with her, due to her work with West End leading ladies, including working on
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King George’s green waistcoat, for the Netflix show, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
Glinda’s bubble gown. In his recollection of this time, one anecdote in particular stood out among the rest.
Twan said: “There was a fitting Naomi took me to, and the actress was not there yet, but they were preparing for the tour at the time. It was in an abandoned church and the whole room was full of Wicked costumes. “It was amazing to be able to get to see all these garments up close because they’re so intricate and detailed. “Half of the time, you don’t know it needs that much detail to make it look alive.”
Masters of the insignia On the subject of bringing things to life, tasked with embroidering over 1,900 insignias in 14 different designs, Twan had his work cut out for him for Apple TV’s Master of the Air, which follows the Eighth Air Force of the United States during the Second World War. In comparison to Twan’s fantastical work for the musical productions of The Little Mermaid, and Wicked, this project on the historical events of World War II, sounds as though it is world's apart from Twan’s usual portfolio, and I asked if his approached differed at all, due to a different subject matter.
Twan answered: “In a sense it was a completely different approach because it had to be really precise. The detail was small, because they were only 8x3cm maximum. That was a nice challenge for me.
“Because it was based on true history, I wanted to replicate them as close as possible.”
However, Twan’s interaction with history didn’t just stop at his replication of the Air Force insignias. Production took its engagement with the history to another dimension when Twan was tasked with embroidering onto authentic WWII fabrics. Embroidering fabrics to upkeep the highest level of authenticity is challenge enough, but add using authentic fabrics into the mix and you take the challenge to another plain. As Twan said: “When you’re copying something exactly, you want it to look as authentic as possible. Maybe if I didn’t try as hard as I did, it probably would have still been fine, but for me, it needed to look exactly like the original.”
Full suit embroidered by Twan for Pride
Though there was not one unified subject matter in Twan’s portfolio, there was a common thread which tied each project together, which was sentimentality. A childhood familiarity with Ariel, an interest in courtly costume brought upon by an interest fostered at university, a historical tie to WWII with Twan’s old place of residence in the Netherlands being close to the German border. It is clear Twan’s work is sewn together by a passion for the sentimental and emotional, and it will be interesting to see where his next project will lead him.
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