Complete look · 4 API layersGatsby, the host
Swept evening undercut · Understated evening stage finish
The fitting room for an entire cast
See opening night before you rent or buy the costumes.
Try-on apps dress one person. A show dresses a whole cast from one shared rack, scene by scene, on one budget.
For costume designers at community theatres, schools and small companies. ENCORE plans every look across the cast from the rack you already have, previews each one on the real performer, and tells you exactly what is left to hire, buy or find, inside your budget.
One party. Three characters. One shared rack.
Gatsby-inspired costume study · fictional demo cast · real YouCam try-on results
Complete look · 4 API layers
Complete look · 4 API layersDaisy, the party
1920s sculpted evening waves · Party: wine lip, soft matte complexion
Complete look · composite · 4 API layersNick, the guest
Neat short party hairstyle · Natural evening finish
Ten performers. Fifteen looks. One $180 budget.
A Midsummer Night's Dream as a 1920s wedding · two actors double roles · fictional cast, vendors and prices · every image a real YouCam render
Each look picked on its own
5 hard conflicts · $198 of $180
One black dinner jacket on three grooms in the same scene, one wedding gown on three performers at the wedding, and over budget. Found at the fitting instead, each one means a late hire or a rush buy.
ENCORE: the whole cast at once
0 hard conflicts · $160 of $180
The Duke keeps the jacket, Lysander moves to the navy one, Demetrius is hired one in his size; Ama wears one gown as both queens; Helena wears one secondhand dress in both her looks.
Why it matters
Costume mistakes are found at the fitting, after the hire clock has started.
Just under 95% of US high schools in the 2012 Educational Theatre Association survey ran play production, on an average of $2,701 for a play and $7,510 for a musical, for the whole production. Community and fringe companies work the same way: a shared rack, a hire house, secondhand finds and one small budget.
$175
to hire one regular-stock costume for a week, +$40 for each extra week
TDF Costume Collection, New York ↗
+50%
of the rental fee for every extra week a costume is out for fittings, photos or runs
Pioneer Theatre Company rental terms, 2025 ↗
Replacement value
charged for an alteration that can't be undone
Costume Connection, Houston ↗
Hire is priced per piece, per week
The plan uses the rack first, hires or buys only what is left, and prices it against one budget.
Extra weeks for fittings cost extra
Every look is seen on the performer before a hire week is booked.
Irreversible alterations cost the whole costume
Fitting cards mark every hired piece “pin or tack only” and name the hire house.
Sources and what they don't show: docs/PROBLEM.md. ENCORE makes no claim about hours saved.
The whole production keeps moving
“Gatsby's black dinner jacket is damaged.”
Gatsby gets an ivory dinner jacket from Footlights Costume Hire, a fictional hire house. The basket becomes $40 of $250. Three of 18 render layers change (the jacket and the complete look on top of it); the other 15 are kept.
Try the repair in the showcase. Its saved replacement preview works without an API key.
Try the jacket repair →
For hire houses and costume shops
Your stock, tried on the whole cast before anyone calls you.
Publish your catalogue as one JSON feed: pieces, photos, sizes, quantities and weekly prices. Designers load it into ENCORE, see your pieces rendered on their performers, and the planner hires from you only where their own rack falls short. What reaches you is a quote request that already lists each piece, size, quantity and the scene it's needed by.
ENCORE never orders or pays. The designer sends the request from their own email, and you confirm stock and price.
- 1Feed. encore.catalogue.v1 JSON, validated on load and priced for the run length.
- 2Preview. Your garment photo goes through YouCam clothes try-on on each performer.
- 3Order. The order sheet groups what to pull, hire, buy and find secondhand, per performer, with CSV export and a drafted quote request.
- Sample feed (fictional hire house)Feed schemaSee an order sheet
Under the hood
Architecture diagram →Planner
A branch-and-bound search over every look and slot: scene capacity, sizes, availability and budget are hard rules, in plain code.
Render graph
Each layer is keyed by its inputs. Change one piece and only that layer and the ones built on it re-render.
YouCam chain
Clothes try-on for the costume and the outer layer, then hairstyle, then makeup, each output feeding the next.
Failure handling
A face too small for makeup is retried on a head crop and pasted back, labelled composite. Tasks resume after a reload, never bought twice.
Synthetic benchmark, 200 generated productions: look-by-look plans are feasible 24.5% of the time, ENCORE's 100.0%. How it was measured
01
Add the cast
A full-length photo and a close-up per performer, with sizes, roles and the costume direction for each look.
02
Photograph your rack
Add each piece with its tags, sizes, quantity and cost. Plan with owned pieces and a priced catalogue of hire and resale options.
03
Plan the whole cast at once
One coat can't be on two people in the same scene. ENCORE allocates the rack across every look, inside your budget.
04
See opening night
Costume, outer layer, hair and makeup, rendered on your actual performers with the YouCam API. Headwear stays on the fitting checklist.
05
When something breaks, re-plan
A coat goes missing? Only the looks that used it change, only their changed layers re-render, and the basket updates.
Previews support appearance decisions. Physical fittings establish fit. Prices in the showcase come from a fictional partner catalogue.