Liz Vandal facts for kids

Liz Vandal is a talented French-Canadian costume designer. She is best known for creating the amazing costumes for the Cirque du Soleil show Ovo. Her unique style is inspired by futuristic superheroes, cool insects, and even medieval armor. This style was perfect for Ovo, a show that brings different insects to life on stage! Liz Vandal was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1965.

Liz Vandal's Journey

When Liz Vandal was a child, she dreamed of becoming a dancer. Later, she studied computer science in college. But her passion for fashion brought her back to designing. She has a son named Leonard. Cirque du Soleil actually asked her to design costumes twice before Ovo, but those projects didn't work out.

Liz Vandal started her career as a fashion designer in 1988. She has designed costumes for many different groups. These include the National Ballet of Canada and even the famous music group, the Backstreet Boys. She also designed for The Washington Ballet. In 1990, she began a long career designing costumes for Édouard Lock. He founded the Montreal dance company La La La Human Steps.

Designing for Dance and Film

Liz Vandal designed costumes for many of Lock's shows. These included Infante c'est destroy (1991) and 2 (1995). She also worked on Exaucé/Salt (1999) and Amelia (2002). In 1992, when she was 27, she started her own company. It was called Vandal Costumes. She created it with her partner, Yveline Bonjean.

Vandal Costumes creates outfits for fashion, theater, opera, music, and movies. They are especially good at dance costumes. In 2000, the Backstreet Boys hired her. She designed the costumes for their "Black & Blue" tour. In 2002, she designed costumes for two films. These were The Lathe of Heaven and La Turbulence des Fluides.

Creating for Cirque du Soleil

Ovo is the first Cirque du Soleil show Liz Vandal designed. She once said she was fascinated by insects as a child. She explained that "Insects were here before we were here." She believes they will probably be here after humans are gone. She also noted that "we would die without them."

The director of Ovo, Deborah Colker, wanted the costumes to suggest insects. She did not want them to be exact copies. Liz Vandal found inspiration from different places. She looked at the graphic lines of French designer Pierre Cardin. She also studied the slashed sleeves of Renaissance clothes. The pleating styles of Japanese designer Issey Miyake also gave her ideas.

Bringing Insects to Life

From early 2008 to spring 2009, Liz Vandal worked with the Cirque du Soleil team. They created 17 different insect costumes. These included a spider, a mosquito, and a firefly. They also made costumes for ants, butterflies, and cockroaches. Each of the first cricket costumes took 75 hours to make!

The first insect costume Liz Vandal imagined was the spider. She drew a real spider. Then she turned it into a design for a woman's body. Liz Vandal used the Cirque du Soleil laboratory. There, she developed her own fabrics and textiles. This made sure the costumes were stretchy enough for lots of movement. It was important to make the insect costumes in sections. Using stretchy material allowed the performers to move easily.

At first, Liz Vandal thought about using materials that would break down naturally. But she decided to use regular polyester and Lycra. These materials last a long time. This made them more "green" in the long run.