Chukchi Belt and Bag

This project was also in my first year and our second live project. The Captain Cook museum in Middlesbrough commissioned an assignment to create costumes celebrating Captain Cook’s exploration trip. The costumes were used in the celebrations for the Tall Ships race in 2011. I gained experience with working to a company’s specifications to be used in commercial events. 

The costumes were based on the clothes worn by the people groups Captain Cook met on his exploration trip. The Chuckchi people was the people group given to our year group. They were a people that lived in Siberia in the eighteenth century.

I was in a team with two others. My tutor distributed the work between us and I was chosen to make to bag and belt which was very embellished in comparison to the other simpler pieces worn by the chuckchi people. I really enjoyed learning to work with animal hides and leather tools and techniques in this project.

The belt buckle was the only thing I couldn't make materially authentic. As it would have been made from whale or seal bone I instead had to make it from clay.