Pirates of the Caribbean Attraction Part 5

Marc Davis, Mary Blair and Walt decided to put Alice Davis, (Marc's wife) in charge of the costuming for the Pirates. She manufactured all of the original costumes for Pirates by strictly following Marc Davis' designs. Walt had a very favorable view of her after her work on It's a Small World; especially after Alice had garnered a very high regard by Mary Blair.

Alice spoke about this time period as being difficult. Relatively new to Disney and working in the center of the model shop, surrounded by a small crew of scrutinizing eyes, she persevered and put forth her best effort. She was told not to focus on the  lining of the coats, but she would argue that they would last longer. The audio animatronics were intended to run for hours a day, every day, for years which of course was going to wear out the fabric. She designed and created 47 costumes for Pirates of the Caribbean and told higher ups that she believed each animatronic needed a backup costume, but was told no because they were on a large, yet fairly tight budget.

Well you can cut two costumes at the same time you're cutting one. Alice had worked on her own line of fashion and made costumes for television for over a decade. At this point she knew that one costume wasn't going to work.

Dick Irvine, (the one who handedly denied her the budget for duplicates of all the costumes) asked Alice how much material she would need to complete the project.  Alice doubled the amount and made two of every costume anyway. She even got a carpenter to make her a secret cabinet where she stored them.

Several months after Pirates opened, there was a fire (oddly enough in the fire scene). Dick Irvine ran to Alice in an emotional state and asked how long it would take to remake the costumes. They couldn't reopen the ride unless the Pirates were clothed.  To his dismay, Alice answered that the hats alone would take weeks. Then she told him that she had originally made two of every costume in spite of his initial direct refusal. She told him she could get the costumes to him in 30 minutes and the attraction was running again within 24 hours.

Currently, Disneyland retains three sets of costumes for every figure.

Alice Davis humbly refused to take credit for the design of the costumes, claiming they all came from Mark's concept design work. On occasion she would have to redesign a costume for a tricky situation. As was the case with the auctioneer. He wears a long vest to his knees, and when he leaned back his pants rose up to his vest repeatedly. And since none of the modelers listened to Alice explain that a gentleman dresses himself to the right or the left, the entire figure was torn down. The modelers then understood what Alice meant that a gentleman dresses himself to the left or the right.

The original redhead in the auction scene was also a problem. Alice had to tackle the area below her bust because there was only a 2-inch tube holding her upright. Alice's job was to dress this hollow body, so she made a stiff under bust corset that attached to the top of the hips to help give her shape. However, it was always kept hollow. Alice well understood costuming was all about illusion of what the audience sees.

In the early days just after Pirate's opening, it was Alice's job, along with her team to check each figure every morning and adjust all of the costumes and wigs, as well as  makeup to help make them look realistic.