Big hat, big puppet, big challenge: UTM alumna creates convocation costume for special ‘guest’ Little Amal

When Ashley Regimbal-Kung snuck into Associate Professor Chester Scoville’s full science fiction and fantasy literature class as an undergrad, she never dreamed it would lead to this.

“Even though I wasn’t technically his student, I sat in on all the lectures, participated all the time, did all of the readings and was entirely obsessed,” she said. “Until midterms, when my prof found out I wasn’t actually one of his students.” 

Not easily discouraged, she ended up becoming a registered student of Scoville’s by enrolling in every one of his classes she could, and, by the time she graduated with her University of Toronto Mississauga honours bachelor of arts with distinction in art and art history in 2011, they had become good friends.

During a recent dinner with Scoville and his wife, Kimberley Yates, associate director of the Jackman Humanities Institute, Regimbal-Kung learned the university was bestowing an honorary degree on Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, creators of the Handspring Puppet Company. The puppeteers’ performances have raised awareness of social issues in more than 13 countries, including their native South Africa. Most recently, the pair has been travelling the world with Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet that represents the plight of refugee children.

For the puppet’s appearance at convocation, organizers were seeking “a giant hat for a giant puppet.”

By happy chance, Regimbal-Kung, by day a communications advisor to the federal government, has a passion for costume making.

“I have been competing in international contests, making increasingly elaborate gowns and sculpture and props, not only for competition but also for film and TV and costuming houses,” said the UTM alumna. “I had a reputation for making impossible objects — and this certainly fit that.”

A member of the Toronto Steampunk Society since 2006 — her first TSS costume was Jean Grey/Phoenix in a Victorian bustle dress, as part of a Steampunk Xmen team — she has led courses on corsetry, leatherwork and adapting patterns at events like Fan Expo, Anime North, Polaris and AdAstra.

But once she accepted the convocation commission, she quickly learned that — with its 5.5-foot circumference and 2.5-square-foot mortarboard — the large item overflowed her usual creative space.

“My work table isn’t that big; it doesn’t usually have to be,” said Regimbal-Kung, who has also created pieces for TV shows including Murdoch Mysteries and Reign. “It was me dancing around the edges of my worktable as I sewed it by hand. The tassel alone was 13 inches, without the rope. Any bigger and it wouldn’t have fit in my car.”

She said it took a few weeks to finish, as she held it to her usual high level of quality — although you’d have to be more than 12 feet tall to notice.

“Anytime I saw a pucker, I would unstitch, even though you can’t even see my stitches at that scale,” she said, with a laugh. “Steampunk is more about little details and up-close viewing, so I always take pride in making my stitches so tiny that they don’t take away from the whole look.”

The other challenge was working without a live model for fitting. “I had to build a tiny maquette to create a pattern on,” she said. “I also ended up using my own head to scale the design up.”

As the official “keeper of the hat,” Regimbal-Kung attended the June 8 UTM convocation ceremony to present the mortarboard to Amal and her creators and said she enjoyed seeing people’s reactions to the giant piece. It also offered her an opportunity she doesn’t usually get with her commissions.

“As an artist, you can’t always control how something is used when you make it for someone else,” she said. “So when they put the hat on, I was like ‘no, no, you have to turn it this way, the tassel goes the other way.’”

The hat will now be added to the UTM drama program’s prop inventory.

Inspired by the success of the large-scale piece, Regimbal-Kung is currently crafting a series of “magical artifacts” for a live-action role-play game as well as her next Fan Expo costume: sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg from The Witcher series. 

And as much as she enjoyed the challenge of the giant mortarboard, she said, she is happy to have it checked off on her list of things to do.

“So relieved,” she said, with a laugh. “I’m never satisfied until the show has come and gone. You can plan, but you can never know for sure until it’s done. I’m glad I had this chance.”

RELATED COVERAGE:

• Little Amal, symbol of hope for refugees, visits UTM’s convocation ceremony
• Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, who reimagined the art of puppetry, receive honorary degrees