About

Image: Ben Trivett

The Pastie Project was created by costume designer and historian Coleen Scott. She is a professional costume designer and makeup artist with an MFA in Costume Design from Boston University. Coleen is passionate about preserving burlesque costume history, and with her husband, photographer Ben Trivett, they created a photo archive of pasties, both vintage and cutting edge. Their goal was to publish a book on the history of pastie construction, and to represent as many varieties and types that have existed throughout burlesque history.  Thanks to generous support during a Kickstarter fundraiser in March 2017, The Pastie Project book was published in June 2017, and is available for purchase at Blurb Books!

Coleen performed primarily in the New York City burlesque scene from 2008-2018, producing and performing from coast to coast under the stage name Rosey La Rouge. Major highlights in Rosey’s burlesque career include: producing a series of Muppet Burlesque shows, participating in a year-long artist residency at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn with the troupe Storybook Burlesque, performing in The New York Burlesque Festival and the NYC Fringe Festival, being part of The New York City Burlesque Choir, working backstage for several BHOF legends shows, and judging for the Queen of Burlesque competition at BHOF. She also did a series of interviews with burlesque legends about their costumes for Burlesque Beat. Coleen’s book The Costumes of Burlesque: 1866-2018 for publishers Routledge, Taylor and Francis was published in June 2019. Her newest publication The Costumes of Hollywood will be out July 4, 2025.

Coleen has presented at national conferences BurlyCon, USITT, and The Costume Society of America National Symposium. She taught burlesque costume history and pastie history at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender in Las Vegas, and has taught pastie workshops for years in various venues. During the academic year Coleen heads the Costume Technology and Makeup program at Santa Rosa Junior College. This summer she is helping grow her burlesque community in Sonoma County by teaching course curriculum adopted from The New York School of Burlesque and Jo Weldon’s The Burlesque Handbook. She looks forward to continuing to make art and support art both as entertainment and resistance.