#marina toybina

[theyheoftheapocalypse]

marina toybina really waltzed into the my chemical romance world and proposed working on the tour herself and then got the job, proceeded to pull that cheerleader dress out in the matter of a few weeks, absolutely knocked it out of the park for the entire tour, got gerard on the new york times best dressed people of 2022, made a chainmail gown and generally was behind one of the most lifechanging events for mcr fans and trans people, is the first known public figure to use they/them for gerard way in writing, then did a podcast saying that the universe was behind all this and it was fate and destiny, and used both he/him and they/them for gerard out loud for ten whole minutes, then designed the most cunty secretary look ever and waited until several days after tour to tell us it was her. motherfucker i love her so much. welcome to the family marina

[foolscapper]

Thank you for your work, Ms. Toybina!

[jetstargf]

gerard way went to college in drag in the 90s and has spoken at length abt identifying w femininity and how the hair and makeup during revenge era was to safely express that and how they identify w jeanne d’arc and use he/they pronouns and that researching the transgender experience was healing for them and referred to the transgender community as “we” and “us” and wore dresses on stage while their friends smiled and frank said the best part of this tour is “watching gerard be himself on stage.” and yet at every turn ppl have said they’re cis or queerbaiting or in a phase despite 20+ years of saying the opposite. and today marina toybina one of their close friends who made them custom dresses and costumes for the tour used they/them for them. i am feeling predictably very normal about this.

[concatenationart]

i’m sick

[z0mbiefrank]

MCR5 Theory: Secretary Gerard is a character called The Widow

I'm unsure if everyone is thinking along the same lines, but I have yet to see anyone talk about it, so I've put together this post with evidence and links. (this will expand on the 9/11 theory. also special shout out to @autistme who made a spreadsheet with all the aus eagles lyrics) MCR performed Eagles at all six Australia shows this tour. At five of them, Gerard was dressed in a grey suit and skirt, commonly referred to as the secretary or office lady by fans.

(📷 Dough Peters) Here's a quick reference table for the things I will be talking about here. (Not necessary to read, I will explain it all)

At Brisbane, the drumheads read "everything under control" followed by "here comes the airplane". The planes have yet to hit the towers, but disaster is imminent. Eagles has evolved a lot over the tour but the Aus dates heard a new consistent change in the first verse.

All along the river bends All along with all my friends Yes, all around the river bends All together with my friends

There is minimal change for Brisbane 2. Notice how gerard is dressed as the secretary and says "my friends".

Next comes Melbourne 1. The drumhead reads "TErrOR". The plane has hit and there is a dramatic change to the first verse.

All night long the widow sends Valentines to bitter friends Yes, all night long the widow sends Valentines to all my friends

This character with friends now has a title, and it is The Widow. She has lost her husband in the attack. Her friends survived and she is sending them letters of love during this terrible time.

Melbourne 2, Gerard breaks the outfit chain. He is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, there is no hint of office wear, he is no longer playing the widow, he is playing himself. The drumhead also seems unrelated to 9/11 "BARK BARK BARK". They sing the same first verse as the previous night with minimal change, except for the last line

Valentines to all her friends

This is the only instance where Gerard does not refer to the friends as "my friends" at all during aus eagles, and it is because they weren't in the skirt suit that night, they were not the widow.

Next comes Sydney. The Widow is back and she's covered in blood! Something awful has happened to her, she's dying. But the drumhead reads "UNKILLAbLe". (This was written by Frank, an extremely powerful thing for him to do considering his accident in Sydney and PTSD. MCR has always used concept albums as a vessel to speak of things the band has been through.) The widow continues to write her letters during eagles despite the blood on her face.

(📷 Jess Gleeson) Sydney 2. The Widow again. She is in the exact same outfit, down to her boots (sports mode), but this time she is not only covered in blood but her eyes are WHITE. She is dead! The drumhead now reads "Unkillables", this is no longer specifically just one, but multiple people. It could be mcr as a band, mcr as individuals, or mcr fans themselves. In the context of a concept album, unkillables can take on a whole new meaning. It brings to mind the supernatural, ghouls, vampires, werewolves. How is it that the widow is dead, yet she is walking on stage right in front of us? Staring at us with blank eyes on the big screen? Is she a ghost, a zombie? I'm not sure. But she is still the widow. Even in death, she is searching for her husband.

(📷 ashymcr , expiiredglitter)

Which leads me to Summertime. The piece of evidence that drove me to write this long-ass post. As we know, it is a love song about Gerard's marital partner. Before they played, Gerard spoke in a breathy and musically haunting voice "I'll find you. I'll find you. come find me." Definitely something a lost and ghostly widow would say. They also bring out a white handkerchief, they do not have it in any other songs. Throughout the performance, Gerard clutched it to their chest repeatedly and held it lovingly in both hands.

In the third picture, he is looking down sadly at the handkerchief singing the line "If you stay, I would even wait all night." (video)

This is very clearly The Widow. She is mourning her husband, she is dead, lost and searching for him. Perhaps the handkerchief is all she has left of him, or it is simply to dry her tears, but she is clearly in mourning for her marital partner.

And finally, Eagles at Sydney 2. The first verse stays the same except for the third line. "Yes, all night long the widow sends" becomes

Yes, all day long the widow sends

She is writing night and day. She does not rest. Her outfits in Sydney are exactly the same. Every single other secretary's outfit is subtlely different, but now she is dead, she is stuck in the same clothing like a ghost. The Widow also makes an appearance later in the song.

We found the widow And hit her with a baseball bat

I have less ideas of what this could be about, but I think if some dead lady was walking about being unkillable, people would get freaked and attack her with a baseball bat. The concept of "unkillables" is something I could write a whole other post about but I'll spare you for now.

To conclude, I think The Widow as a concept album character would fit right in with MCR. They are no strangers to lovers separated by death. Others on here have spoken on how the feminine outfits Gerard has chosen this tour have often been of women scorned or living in the shadows of powerful men. I believe The Widow would fit right in. Even after her husband has died, she is only talked about in reference to him. She is The Widow, something that tells us more about her husband than herself.

[smeagles]

NEW MARINA TOYBINA INTERVIEW NOT A DRILL

[samarashoot]

"I think we were so specific in understanding what characters we were being influenced by that we could go directly to the source. With Jackie O, for example, it was more about understanding her. What is it about her style that Gerard was gravitating towards? [...] While some of the costumes were called costumes, others were more like lifestyle characters. We were bringing something to life that wasn't completely a costume." - Marina Toybina, interviewed for @mcrswarmzine

"Gerard's dress does not look like a costume. They look as natural and comfortable as the original Manson Girls, each seemingly unfazed by the spectacles they have created [...] When he removes the cardigan a few songs into the show, it is incidentally revealed that his armpits are shaved. I feel strange noticing this, even with the assumption that it was a deliberate choice made for this costume. I wonder if this is a way to further a physical embodiment of this character, to connect more fully to the experiences of these women." - excerpt from Female Trouble, my reflection on the Houston show for @mcrswarmzine

[mcrswarmzine]

Talk about the power of manifestation! We were so thrilled to sit down with costume designer Marina Toybina and chat with her about all things costume design and My Chemical Romance. Her artistry and skill inspired us all this tour, and she had such wonderful things to say about her process working with the band. Check out our interview with her in the SWARM digital edition, available now on our BigCartel shop!

[revengeromance]

[IMAGE ID: A bright green field with a tree and two rainbows against a light blue sky, with sparkles overlaid.

White text reads: “How I see the world after Marina Toybina says “I wanted him to be him, y’know? And he was in this like beautiful place in his life and career right now where he felt great and felt confident, and I just wanted to uplift that.” about Gerard Way.” /END ID]

[shadowofmoths]

gripping the mcr mutuals hands so tight rn as we experience collective hysteria over the reminder that gerard is happy and confident in their little outfits that were lovingly created for them by someone who cares v much

[theyheoftheapocalypse]

incredibly iconic of marina toybina to repost a WGA protestor wearing a dress in mockery of the Met Gala and holding a sign that says "my pronouns are pay/me" she's amazing and i would die for her

[teal-gerard]

Marina Toybina talking about working with My Chemical Romance on their 2022 tour (full video here)

more context here , and here at mcr-lore on twitter

[saturnisfallingdown]

Girls when the interview about their two loves (costuming and mcr) is about their two loves (costuming and mcr)

[dem0lition-lover]

i absolutely need marina toybina to release a fashion book of all of gerard's outfits throughout tour and the inspiration and process of making them all

[z0mbiefrank]

Transcript for Marina Toybina on the Designing Hollywood podcast

I've seen a couple people searching for a transcript of her discussing Gerard Way's stage costumes, so I have made one! Feel free to share/link as a resource. Popular quotes are bolded.

Link to source video. MCR's section starts around 22 minutes in.

The transcript is beneath the cut.

Interviewer: Well now you’ve just finished working with My Chemical Romance, which is a band that I dig. Gerard Way is also a comic book writer and artist, created the Umbrella Academy. So, first of all, how did you get that job? Because there’s a design, I mean the look of that band and what they like to do, what they’re influenced by, they’re not just your typical rock band. So what was it like? How did you get that job? You designed the whole tour right?

Marina: I Collaborated with the lead singer, yes, with Gerard. Uhm, okay everything kinda has it’s place in time. About 15 years ago, 15 to 20 years ago, I was a huge fan. I’m a rock girl at heart, and back then a lot of their music was like music to my soul. It got me through some of the harder times. A lot of my friends were musicians. I never saw them live, never could afford to get to their shows, but knew one day in my heart there probably will be an opportunity, they were in like my top 5 favorite bands. He was an artist I’ve always wanted to work with. This past summer, while I was designing So You Think You Can Dance, I just happened to turn on their music - nope- let me rewind I'm so sorry. So a year ago I was reading a release that they're coming back together on tour and they're playing LA on my birthday. I looked at my team and I was like "I'm gonna be at that show. We're gonna go to the show, we're all gonna go together." And I just jokingly said “I'll probably dress them!” A lot of things in my career have happened to manifestation, I'm a huge believer in that. I think my intentions were so clear into the universe. I believed in it so much. That happened a year ago. Then this past summer, I was driving to work, I was listening to their music and I just happened to text my agent. I'm like “You know I really want to get back into music. It's what I used to do. I used to do a lot of live performances. I used to do a lot of music videos. I need to feel that again, even though I'm surrounded with music all the time and I'm doing all these shows. But there was a disconnect in my career, to where it's like I love live entertainment.” And she’s like “Who do you want? Like are we going after pop stars?” And I'm like “No I've done all that. I want to go back to my roots. I want like Incubus or My Chemical Romance or Red Hot Chili Peppers. Get me back to rock and roll.” And she was like “Well, you know, they're touring, but it's probably… I don’t know, let's put it out there.” Then within two weeks I get an email from her like “Hey their managers want to meet with you, he wants to meet with you.” One of the biggest things about their aesthetic is one of my probably top three costume designers, Colleen Atwood, did their black parade album and it was so incredible. Back then, I was always a step behind. It's like they did The Black Parade and then I met the photographer later. Then I worked on a project with him. So it was always like some better-late-than-never I guess. And I'm like “I'm gonna work with her someday, I love her work. I've been told by many people we're a lot alike.” You know? And I'm like “Why not?” And so we get this email “He would like to take a meeting, see what we can do.” I never expected to do a tour, I just wanted to open this door of opportunity, to just collaborate, maybe do one thing together. And he just showed up in my studio and it was just an amazing artistic energy.

Interviewer: Were you starstruck?

Marina: I was trying to hold it together. I mean before they came in, I can't tell you how much I paced. Usually, there's like 15 - 20 people at my studio. This was the time and day that I was alone. I didn't know what to do. Of course, my expectations were just to present myself and see if I would be a good asset to them because I love their music and I love what he's about. Also, it’s not just the frontman for me, I think he's a brilliant artist. So there's a lot of things. I just wanted our worlds to merge somehow. Within the first five minutes of our conversation, I'm like “Oh I get his brain.” I told them my story. I told him that this is like 20 years in the making. You know, I probably sound like a crazy-fan costume designer. But we share ideas, he walked me through the concepts of things he wants to do on this particular tour and they haven't started doing the US leg of the tour. I didn't know if they had a designer. Then he did mention Colleen was doing something for him and I was like “Okay, how - can this be a triangle? You know? Can I come in in the picture?” It was just a beautiful collaboration. It was a genuine artist to artist conversation. Like “Let's do something interesting.” He walked me through his concepts, his ideas and I'm like “Alright well, let me come up with some creatives, see if we're on the same page.” Again, as much as I wanted to be like “Hey we're doing this tomorrow!” I also felt like it's important now in my career and possibly in his, to make sure the relationship is good, that this is the right artistic match to one another and… it worked! From there it was just amazing fittings, amazing collaboration and some iconic things that went viral!

Interviewer: I love hearing this from you because this is like the joyous experience of 'oh my god I dreamt of working with somebody and you finally get to do it'. But I want to take you back to that because I'm curious. How would that process even begin? You're working with somebody that you already know their music, you already know his vibe. And Colleen Atwood, who I've interviewed by the way, on the show, she's incredible. Our interview had to - she was in the middle of a work day, so it was only it was a short interview. But how does a collaboration like that work with somebody like Gerard Way? How do you guys start working together? How is that process?

Marina: For us, it was just like an initial conversation. I introduced myself, my work. They already did some background checking up to see where I stand, what my aesthetic was like. And I felt I was in a place in my life, in my career, where I was able to bring something new. That's where my confidence I think came from. At the same time I didn't want to change the artist that's in front of me. I think that's always so important for me when working with music. You're dealing with a fan base, and a reputation, an aesthetic approach that's far beyond any artistic reach of anybody new coming in. So for me it was having a conversation, understanding what characters he wanted to bring forward. This was a very playful tour. This wasn't about dressing up the whole band. This was about him being in this world of iconic characters. And how can we bring this to life? What can we do that's still very recognizable to his fans but at the same time a little bit of a shock value? But at the same time, I wanted him to be him, you know? He was in this beautiful place in his life and career where he felt great and felt confident and I just wanted to uplift that. We did our creative decks, went through the conversations of which characters we wanted to go with, these are the shows that he had. I knew which city, we kind of wanted to play off where was the right time. Halloween was right around the corner, what do we do? So it was like very strategic conversations but at the same time so much room to play and be creative. So I just gathered the top 10 characters that we had discussed and kind of started doing my own thing, and keeping him and the music in mind. Had an amazing fitting. I've never worked with an artist that's so clear. It was not just directional and very precise and very distinct on his own style, but it was clear for me when we were doing fittings, this is somebody that knows his body. This is somebody who knows his aesthetic on stage. This is somebody that knows how they're going to perform. So it just made it so much easier for me to be able to fall into his world and do the fittings like “Is this going to come off? Is this piece staying on? Are we going to do options? Is the character going to evolve on stage? Is the character going to come down on stage?” So all those conversations happen in our fittings and then I just packed it all up, with distinct notes, send them off, and then kept checking in, making sure everything was okay.

Interviewer: So when you had a direction for the characters, were you doing sketches first?

Marina: No, not at all. This was something that I felt like needed to have the research. It wasn't just about designing something on paper. When he mentioned to me “I wanted to be a vintage cheerleader” I'm like “Okay, what era are we in? 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 40’s?” and then he was like “Find me something that's within possibly this color scheme.” The image that went viral when he did wear the cheer uniform, it was probably like 10 different vintage stores that we went to. And I'm like “Okay everything's size zero.” or like “What am I gonna do? This stuff doesn't exist anymore. If I get it from Etsy it's not going to come in time.” There's like so much and it happened to be as we were leaving one of the stores I looked on a sale rack and I saw this damaged, weird, vintage cheer dress that had no zipper, that had no hem. And I was like “I love this! I love this because I can reconstruct it. I can go and get the fabrics that we need to still keep it original and authentic. And that's how we start working. I build out a mannequin his size at my studio, put it on, we reshaped it, took the whole thing apart, reconstructed it to be his measurements, and still kept it authentic. After he wore it, the pattern for the actual thing was sold out. Fans loved it so much that we were getting notifications that people actually found the original pattern of this 1940s uniform and were buying it out.

Interviewer: That's crazy, okay!

Marina: Oh it's amazing! I think, to me, that's when things are just meant to be. When not only did my work translate into something beautiful on stage, but then he becomes this incredible persona on stage that then delivers the character and plays it off. We did that throughout every single look. Every single look when it became a fan favorite or craze.

Interviewer: In terms of time, what was the process when you first got the gig and then to the first show that was performing using your work? What was the time frame?

Marina: I think I had about a month to get it all together.

Interviewer: Wow! That’s not much!

Marina: Yeh and at the same time, I had another huge project in the works so it was going back and forth. But I could not tell you, I've had difficult projects in the past, I've had difficult times with artists, or finding our own language, or how to execute some things. This was so easy that time didn't matter to me. It was such a great collaboration, it flowed, like Bruce Lee would say, like water. It just made sense and no matter how difficult my other project was or what was going on at the same time, it was like oh this is the universe showing me this is how it's supposed to be. This is what's inspiring me. And at the end of the day, the one thing I told Gerard was “You made me fall in love with music again. You came into my life as an artist that I've admired and wanted to work with for almost 20 years. There was a big part of my beginning that made me look back at this now and be like “Oh that's what. That was that feeling that I had when I was 16 or 20.”

[smeagles]

what if i died