Tyranny of Style: Gregg Barnes is a Tony Award winning costume designer, best known for incredible Broadway designs that range from Legally Blonde to Follies, and Kinky Boots. He has been working on his latest show, Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway, throughout its evolution over the last three years. Gregg opens up about his career in costume design and the exciting process of bringing this much beloved cartoon to the stage!
10 comments:
First off the costumes for Aladdin look so amazing. Each one has so much detail and is crafted so beautifully. This looks like it is going to be quite the show. Second it was really interesting to read about the start of Gregg Barnes career. He did not intend to go in this direction but he did and it ended up working at really well. It is also nice to hear it took him fifteen years to get to Broadway. It is reassuring to know that you really have to work you way to the top. In addition to this the show has some record breaking costume changes, getting changed in less then thirty seconds sounds like a challenge.
This is so exciting! The costumes are so carefully detailed and it seems like they fit the background of the story so well. When I started reading this article, I was curious as to how the costumes were going to differ from the animated film. The amount of research that the designer did definitely comes through in his renderings and it is interesting to hear the breakdown of his design process. We have been learning about production stages in PTM recently and hearing the designers breakdown puts into prospective the amount of time it takes to design a show of that caliber.
These costumes are so beautiful and intricate! I feel like they really capture the spirit of the film and the concept of the story while making it theatrical. Animated cartoons are often pretty simply drawn (no one wants to redraw crazy embroidery over and over) but these designs manage to take the feel of the animations and make it realistic and beautiful. I also love getting to see the renderings- they are works of art in themselves, and I'm glad he meticulously saves everything he does so there are records of his beautiful work.
These initial costume renderings and fabric choices are out of this world. Disnes's Aladdin looks like its going to be a huge hit in just the costumes themselves. It seems as if the costumes were a critical component for the creation of this production. The costume facts at the end of the article were the most interesting to me. 337 costumes is huge and so exciting for a costume designer to create 136 unique individual designs. Gregg Barnes has a huge responsibly in this show and must be fascinated and honored to design for such a large production. I would love to design for this scale or production one day, but I have a long way to go before that.
Amazing! I would really love to see this. The costumes create such a bright, lively environment. It brings the joyful, cartoon quality to the stage while staying true to tradition and historical accuracy. I loved seeing the renderings, imagery, and processes of the costume design too!
I am really impressed and happy with the choices that Disney is making with this production. I feel that Disney very often ignores the cultures they are representing in their films, but these costumes designed by Barnes seem to stay more true to the arabic culture and time period than anything I have seen by Disney. The make and designs of these costumes look incredibly beautiful and I would love to see them on Broadway. It was also really intriguing to read about Barnes' career and education. Coming into this school I felt a little overwhelmed by the fact that I was starting this program after already spending some time in architecture, but after being here for almost a year I've come to see that there are so many people starting this program at different points in their life. Barnes also makes an important comment about how in our youth we expect fame and success to come to us right away, but so often that is not the case and we have to wait and work extremely hard to get to the top. This article was really insightful and the costumes look beautiful!
I like the design. I think it has a lot of the animated costume design brought into it without being as two dimensional and simple. The beading and patterns really bring the characters to life and depict the characters' way of life. Unlike in the movie, you can see the materials from which the costumes are made, so it can more easily show in which social group the characters are. Since poverty and extravagance are so prominent in the show, I find it important that the costumes fit those themes. I especially like the genie's costume. It shows extravagance and power, but does not fit the design of the rest of the costumes of the powerful people in the show. It is more structures and and less billowy, evoking a sort of displacement from the human characters.
These costumes look beautiful! I love the different patterns and the fabric that is used. The textures are amazing! His take on the attire in the Disney movie really come to life. They're stunning, there really isn't much else to say about them. I also like how he didn't start off as a costumer. How he really didn't know anything until his clothing history class and that he worked hard to make his way in the industry. It's quite inspiring and makes me want to work even harder. I also like that he keeps to using old technology. I really do love modern technology but I also love old techniques, it keeps that feeling of tradition in a way. It makes it feel more real.
I am so excited that aladdin is coming to broadway! I also like how in true disney fashion, they are giving us subtle first looks at how the show is coming together. This show reminds me of the other disney animated movies that went to broadway like beauty and the beast and lion king especially in the sense of the costumes. The costumes are gorgeous and they seem to really reflect the time period well. I was also amazed at how many costume pieces there are in the show! I also like how this article broke down the more subtle things even down to the custom beading on the mens costumes. I cant wait to see this show when it comes out!
What i find really interesting about this design is that it still is very iconic whole being completely new and original. Many time when movies go to the stage costume designers will face the struggle of the iconicness of the character overpowering their design and vice versa. Greg has some fantastic work, and I'm very interested to see how it looks on stage.
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