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Rampage is very eye-catching to say the least. The designers spend hours on end putting them together. You will always know when you have seen one of their costumes. The costumes have to be as light as a feather so they can be worn for hours at a time, not only by adults but by children as well. Many carnival clubs tend to wear just their costumes and parade in them. The Rampage posse, however, dance, jump, walk and run – so they have to be strong enough to withstand the movement and also the added weight of covering materials.
Head designer Colin Spalding has many skills and an eye for detail and structure, he is one of the leading designers / technicians in this field. Once Colin has an idea in his head he will sketch what it should look like once finished. The idea will then be discussed with other designers/technicians at the club. A prototype frame is then built. Once it has passed various rigorous tests, the costume will then go into production. This process is carried out for each section of the carnival theme for that year. A theme can be anything depending on how Colin and the rest of Rampage see how it will portray as a costume. For instance one year the theme was Dreams and Nightmares. This was portrayed with a variety of flying dragons and demons, representing nightmares; and ‘Dream Catchers’ that represented good dreams. Red Indians believed that if you had a nightmare, a Dream Catcher would catch that nightmare and turn it into a good dream.
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click on images to enlarge |
Once a
theme
has been put together and the
costumes built, Rampage will normally have a
launch.
This will give people an insight on what to expect at their first
carnival, which is normally Luton. When Rampage hits the streets the
costumes go out in a special order, this order will reflect the theme, in
Nightmares and Dreams, on the road you had all the demons and dragons
first. Behind them were the Dream Catchers, then the dragons and demons
being caught by the dream catchers and then finally the end result, a
dragon transformed into a swan.
