Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple has died, aged 56. In an early interview with Playboy magazine he is quoted as saying:
We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.
When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” (my italics)
This put me in mind of John Bloomfield, the costume designer on the first series of Poldark.
I remember once seeing John sitting on a dry stone wall in Cornwall while we were filming, sewing a button onto a part of a costume that would never be caught on camera, but was an authentic period detail.
It didn’t matter to him that it probably would never be seen, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep well that night if his costume had been incomplete!
We had worked together “B.P.” (Before Poldark!) on an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s social satire, Bel Ami.
He made me 17 stunning suits for the five-part serialisation, all of which he would sketch out beforehand in an original way.
John's pasted paper sketch for a George Duroy suit
With pieces of coloured paper–cutting like a tailor–he would build a patchwork portrait of the outfit.
Attention to detail from the start!
Rest In Peace– Steve Jobs.
Robin Ellis 