Newcity Stage: How do you make the old new again? In the world of theater, reinvention and revival are commonplace but how do productions rephrase history while staying current? Enter: Izumi Inaba. With a repertoire of costume designs under her belt, Inaba is an expert at reducing, reusing and recycling without compromising innovation or originality. Her designs for Steppenwolf’s “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington” showcase her attention to detail and abstraction of well-known themes.
3 comments:
I wasn't familiar with the work of Izumi Inaba before this article but now I feel the need to look it up. Her rendering are quite beautiful and the idea of creating something new and almost a modern interpretation on old styles really speaks to me. They're quite intricate and pleasing to look at. Especially that last one that features more traditional undergarments displayed under a clear skirtlike piece. There's a timelessness to her work that's so delicate yet so fierce. It's quite interesting that she even researched the way that the garments were made rather than just the styles and looks of what she was going for. I feel for theatre oftentimes it's about mimicking the style of the time with budget and efficiency in mind but Inaba truly looks at recreating the authenticity of the pieces she works with even from the core of how the fabric itself is made and her insistence on following traditional looks and methods with a twist is really beautiful and applaudable.
Inaba offered some good insight into the craft of costume design. I really appreciated her emphasis on the script and its importance to creating good designs. I also admire her research process because it sounds like she goes very in depth. She reminds me of what Ann Roth said she gave us a mini talk about her design process. Ann Roth said she spends a big chunk of her budget goes into research and finding the right materials for the costumes. I think the detailed research is reflected in Inabi’s work too. There is a certain sensibility in her designs which show that she clearly researched about the topics of the play. I loved her combination of the modern and the historical. I think that’s something very hard to achieve, having a design that does not look astray from the time period but also having modern elements incorporated into it.
Reading about an artist's process is super helpful for me as a probable future costume designer. In this case I was really happy to see that my process lines up with Inaba's pretty consistently. Reading the description of her costume plots and thoughts on visual consistency gave me a moment of instant gratification in the work I have done as a costumer up to this point. It always feels good, no matter how many articles I find about costume designers, to read about people in the field I hope to go into doing the same things that I started doing gathering costumes for my high school's production of Cinderella. Though their level of artistry (and ability to have creative expression) is definitely far beyond what I have experienced so far, but that just makes it even more inspiring. Finally, I really appreciate what Inaba said about how costumes contribute to storytelling. It frustrates me when people think of costumes as being a separate part of the performance from the actors or the other technical elements because I think that costume designers are so often a significant part in the stylization of the rest of the show and, like Inaba said, inspiring the actors to make that last push into inhabiting their character.
Post a Comment