Mrs. Hawking

An important part of how Mrs. Hawking goes about her work is her stealth. She is a skilled cat burglar to infiltrate the strongholds of her enemies, a spy well-versed in the ways of avoiding detection while gathering information.

I remember how when, at the Bare Bones reading, I said I imagined Mary as being quite tall and Mrs. Hawking as being very small, the audience laughed in surprise. I think it was mostly due to how Elizabeth Hunter playing her is much taller than Gigi Geller, who was playing Mary, but I think it's also that she's such a formidable presence that people tend to picture her as physically imposing. But part of her struggle with her place is that nature made her a small woman, someone that is not immediately recognizable as physically dangerous. So she has to work around it. She uses her small size to be sneaky, to slip into small places where larger people can't go, to be quick and agile. She can't count on being able to overpower her enemies, so she uses what she does have to evade, to outmaneuver, and to strike before being spotted then vanish without a trace.

When she's out on such missions, she wears a special stealth suit, designed for maneuverability, camouflage, and anonymity. Black with a mask concealing her face. I decided I wanted to make an outfit for this look to, and to have Frances Kimpel, my fierce and mighty physical inspiration for the character, to model it for me. I didn't have a good plan for this shoot, and it would be better done in lower light, but I wanted to get an idea of how the costume looked, and mess around with the composition.

Here is a reference for the outfit. To make it, I bought two loose-fitting dark gray tops from the thrift store and overdyed them twice with black dye. One top is worn like a shirt, and the other one, the turtleneck, is the mask. I had Frances put on her head with her face showing through the neck, then tied the arms in the back. I struggled with what pants to use. I thought at first maybe black trousers with some stretch to them, in hopes of at least vaguely looking like something a Victorian would have access to. But then, when I was digging through my pants drawer, I found a pair of black riding britches. (I haven't ridden much recently, but I've ridden dressage and hunt seat for years.) They're made of a space age material but they are highly flexible, and I like the idea that a sort of "activewear" they actually would have had in the time period would be adapted to Mrs. Hawking's purposes. The belt and gloves (not pictured here, but visible in all other shots) are leather and belong to me. The little leather box hanging off the belt is also thrifted; it's a jewelry box meant for traveling, but I thought it would serve as the box that holds her instruments while she works.

We used the public library in Waltham for our backdrop mostly. I think I will have to redo this shoot in better light– ninjas do most of their work in the dark, right? –but I am pleased with the proof of concept for the look. :-)

Mrs. Hawking, version 1
Photography by Stephanie Karol
Hair and makeup by Gabrielle Geller
Directed and costumed designed by Phoebe Roberts

with Frances Kimpel as Mrs. Hawking
and Charlotte Oswald as Mary Stone

This image is in replication of those “family portraits” that were often the standard of photography back in the Victorian period. The mistress of the house, and her beloved maidservant.

Frances, while much younger than Mrs. Hawking is supposed to be, was my visual inspiration for the character. A small person, deceptively pretty with her wavy golden hair and capable of being disguised as something non-threatening, delicate, and socially expected. But, like Frances, she is fierce, agile, and much more physically powerful than you might immediately guess. The dress does a pretty good job of hiding just how ripped she, and the character, are.

Charlotte not only has the right look, she is around the right age. She is tall and strong, and I liked the idea of Mary having her statuesque Amazonian figure, her pretty face, her long dark hair, her freckles. I thought a girl of the lower classes who had to make her own way in the world should be physically capable, and I like the contrast between her kind of presence and Mrs. Hawking’s. Also, a tall girl gets noticed, can’t be ignored, for well or for ill. She has both the power, and the responsibility, to answer for herself.

Gigi did some age makeup to make her look older, I think it helps. I like her expression here, that even when she is pretending to be a normal woman, the intensity of her always shines through in her eyes and expression. We had a discussion about how wide eyes are a Frances thing, but narrowed, searching eyes are a Mrs. Hawking thing. Also, she never smiles. Smiles wouldn’t be the done thing in period photography anyway, but it never is for her.

Frances is wearing a costume I assembled a year ago to play Irene Adler in a larp at Intercon. It is a thrifted prom dress with an interesting kind of corsety bodice over a frilly black gauze blouse. It’s not totally period, but the combination of the garments gives a nice impression of the right era. The hat is an ostrich feather derby hat from the same costume. The colors, brown and black, make for a somewhat stark combination, but Mrs. Hawking is a relatively recent widow in a time with strict mourning practices (Queen Victoria was a HARDCORE mourner) so the look works out well.

Mary’s costume is a bit fancy for a maid. That gorgeous lace blouse belongs to Charlotte, and though it’s a little excessively adorned I love how it looks on her. The skirt is a floor length double-layered black silk, over another, heavier skirt to give it more volume. The apron is my toile one, well-used; I debated bleaching it but it’s not like Mary wouldn’t be using it. Also I think of blue as Mary’s color. This costume too gives the right impression even if it’s not perfectly correct.