Korea.net : The official website of the Republic of Korea: Vanessa (Mi Kyung) Lee, a Korean American costume designer (fabricator) and owner of Super Suit Factory in Los Angeles, has crafted several of Hollywood's most iconic superhero and character suits.
Despite suffering from polio, she has an impressive resume including designing costumes for over 100 films like "Thor" and "Red One." The following are excerpts from an email interview with the Korean American from Feb. 7-9.
3 comments:
This person has got to have one of the coolest jobs in existence. She's like a character straight out of comic books that gets to make all the super suits. I am picturing her as a real life version of Edna Mode from the incredibles. I really like that she draws insertion from real life things, which at least in my opinion adds some level of grounding to the frankly goofy concept of a man in a cape punching bad guys. I also appreciate how she said that for superhero costumes she often takes into account fans opinions of what the outfit should look like because no one knows these characters better than the communities that have spend hours pouring over every piece of media they have ever appeared in, it's like an army of extremely passionate, and sometimes annoying dramaturgs that are just one reddit post away at all times.
I never really think of the successes that happen in solo businesses, especially as an artist. We’re always so quick to hear about the successes of shops rather than solo artists that work in their studios, especially if that studio is in their home. Reading Vanessa Lee’s story was really motivating and reassuring that you don’t need to work for a company in order to be successful. This is something I’ve wanted to do, but there is a lot of risk to this. I know a lot of people here, though, who have started shops in their garages. It’s stupid that I correlate quality of work to job ranking, when it genuinely does not matter. It seems like the film industry always finds these specialized artists, which is so cool. I wonder how you market specialized craft. That’s something that I wish was taught, since it is really hard to start off as a freelance artist.
I believe that superhero costumes are some of the most difficult to create, simply because the design and patterning of these suits demands so much detail and thought. It is absolutely insane that Lee has designed so many costumes for superhero films, yet I have never heard of her. I think it goes to show how the design and production side of the industry doesn’t gain much public recognition for their accomplishments, except for people like Paul Tazewell or Jon M. Chu. Even then, the actors and performers are definitely the most likely to become outrageously famous. I doubt most of the general public would recognize one of the more famous designers if they walked past them on the street. While I have no desire to become famous, I think it is unfair that people like Lee put in so much of the critical work for a project like Thor, and get very little recognition for it.
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