The Talks: I actually was initially in a fashion program at Pratt University, but I made the decision to switch to theater design for a couple reasons. One, I wanted to be a performer! I was studying dance and I wanted to hone those skills. And I also just felt like the community of fashion designers wasn’t a good fit for me. But the biggest reason was that I was being taught to design for the market.
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Paul Tazewell’s view on costume design is really thought-provoking because he sees it as more than just making ordinary clothes; to him, it's all about telling an overarching story, which is something so commendable. I really love how he talks about using things like color and texture to shape a character’s identity; it helps speak to the person he is as well. For example, like in West Side Story, how Anita’s yellow dress was made to stand out and feel iconic. Instead of making the costumes so overly detailed, he kept them simple, and this really just allows the audience to focus and get a sense of history from these performances. It's a hard task to make costumes that look authentic but still let actors move comfortably, especially in dance-heavy productions, and he does it so well. His thoughts on stage vs. film design were something I hadn’t considered before. In theater, costumes are part of a bigger picture, while in film, every detail matters because the camera captures everything.
I have always admired Paul Tazewell’s designs, and I have spent a considerable amount of time closely examining the costumes in movies and shows he's designed to find out how they were constructed. I also enjoy hearing about how he approaches costume designing, and his own background. What he said about the difference between fashion design and costume design, and how he decided that costume design was a better fit for him creatively really resonated with me, since that is a distinction that I find myself having to explain to people whenever I mention that I want to do costume design. I remember a teacher of mine telling my parents when they asked, that costume design is a collaboration, while fashion design is a competition. I have had to tell a family member who suggested that fashion design allows for more freedom, that the opposite is probably true. All in all, I definitely agree with Tazewell. I don't think fashion design would have been a good fit for me either, mostly because I don't care for the business world.
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