Miles White

Scan000010916, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. Mr. White in Lincoln Center on a visit to the Big Apple Circus. I received the article below from John Goodall last night. TIME Magazine - May. 18, 1953 SPANGLES IN THE AIR WINDING up a five-week stand in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden last week, Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus was off for Boston on the first lap of its annual 10,000-mile tour. As always, the "Greatest Show on Earth" was jammed with enough clowns, animals and death-defying aerialists to bewilder the most attentive youngster in the audience. And, as always, the whole show sparkled with a brand-new spring outfit of costumes, scenery and floats. The man who dresses the circus anew each year, "from the sawdust up" (moss-green this year), is a mild-mannered, round-faced designer named Miles White. White spends about half of each year preparing next year's circus. Betweentimes he spreads himself on Broadway, has designed the costumes for such hit musicals as Oklahoma!, Carousel, High Button Shoes, Bloomer Girl, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hazel Flagg. For this year's circus. White went full-out on four huge production numbers: an aerial ballet featuring 60 girls suspended in mid-air playing Indian Love Call on little glockenspiels, a horsy period piece called "Derby Day Honeymoon," a red, white & blue finale with the expansive title, "Americana, U.S.A.," and the main spectacle—"Candy Land" (see sketches opposite). "The circus should be overexerting," says White, "so that you can't quite believe it after it's over. One way to get that effect is by force of numbers. I never let anyone tell me how many costumes there are to do, because if I knew, I'd never have the courage to start. If you start hitting statistics, you can't have fun, and the whole idea of the circus is having fun." In his seven years with Ringling Bros., White has lightened and heightened the whole atmosphere of the circus from plush tones to brilliant pastels. "Dress the acrobats in blood-red velvet." he says, "and they look as if they'd crash from heaviness. But dress them in sequins, and they seem to fly." This year White used more sequins than ever before. Says he: "With aniline dyes you get color that vibrates, then you put sequins on top and you have the giddiest vibrations in the world. The shaking light makes more excitement; the whole thing has a juvenile quality." In following this theory. White suffered only one absolute failure. He had designed-"a beautiful sequined jacket for the tiger trainer," and when the tigers saw it they roared with rage. "They didn't like my work," confesses White, "so he didn't dare wear it."