Friday, April 04, 2025
How Do You Become a Costume Designer?
www.msn.com/en-za/news: For so many who pursue a career in design, it's the memories of watching glamorously decorated films and television shows and ornate stagings of theatrical productions that serve as their initial motivations to enter the fashion industry. While some might be inspired to create their own fashion labels, others experience a different calling. That is, to costume design.
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It’s really comforting to know that there are so many paths to becoming a successful designer. Being young and relatively inexperienced, it can be easy to fall into the mindset that there is a “right” way to climb the ladder—whether that means going to the “right” school or getting the “right” summer internship, it’s a slippery slope that can cause you to miss out on a ton of experience and exciting opportunities. Most of the designers interviewed in the article (Paul Tazewell of Wicked, Linda Muir of Nosferatu, Janty Yates of House of Gucci, and Charlese Antoinette of Air) spent a lot of time working at smaller fringe theater groups before they moved on to bigger, more mainstream projects. At these smaller groups, they were able to hone their skills and make important connections that they would keep for the rest of their lives. If there’s one takeaway I have from this article, it’s that ANY work is good work and will teach you something. It’s better to branch out and learn new things than to wait around for a dream job to present itself.
Part of the reason I wish to be a costume designer so much is because of the freedom of costuming. Designers have the freedom to explore so many different facets of theater and character in their work, and honestly have one of the biggest roles in creating a character other than the playwright and the actor. The costume is one of the first impressions you get of a character, and can tell so much about them from one glance. Another aspect of costume design I love so much- and that this article really focuses on- is how many different ways you can become one. There are so many stories of actors becoming costume designers, or fashion majors falling into the field, or just people who try it once falling in love with it by accident and then pursuing it. It’s comforting to know that however I get there is ok.
I’ve always loved theater, especially musical theater, and I also love people. It makes perfect sense to me to pursue costume design as a career, and this article only confirms that. While fashion design and costume design are fundamentally different, I love that there is an overlap in the two professions, with fashion designers dabbling in costume design and vice versa. It is very comforting to know that there are options down the road, and a wide variety of career paths that I could utilize my skill set for. I also found it interesting that a business degree helped with the paperwork and planning involved in costume design. It makes sense when I think about it though, and it opens up the career to people from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, which is always a good thing. Finally, I loved how this article had the voices of several different costume designers from different backgrounds, because it really made the point even stronger.
There are so many skills involved in costuming that people don’t think about when they are learning about standard fashion. One of my favorite types of clothing design is historical costuming. I love when people take the time to learn about how the garments of the past were constructed. Researching for a time period is fascinating, you get to learn about how people lived their daily lives and how they would acquire clothes. Typical fashion major programs only go into modern garment creation and how to create designs for fashion lines and everyday wear. I feel like most people who know they want to be costume designers seek out the programs that involve costuming, but those who find out later on that they have a passion for costumes will also bring a new perspective. They will be able to take what they know about fashion and bring it into their work as a costumer.
I found this article very interesting even as someone who is not a costume designer. I think that a lot of what was discussed specifically relating to costumes relates to every area of design in theatre whether it is Lighting, sound, Scenic or VMD. I thought that it was interesting to read about how different educations affect approaches to costume designing and influence the World that is created by it. It also talked about the benefit of having a business degree because it allows one to have some knowledge of finances. I think it is interesting to be reminded that while we all have such different training and mediums, we all are working towards the same goal, The World, and that comes down to the same muscles. I think that it was also nice that the article talked about how to break into the industry, and the different yet similar routes that people took in their lives that led to it. A lot of it has to do with patience and determination and not thinking that you are too good for one job.
I have always viewed costume design as simply assembling clothes that look really cool in a performance. However, after reading the article, I have changed my viewpoint. I had not before considered how much design is involved in costume design. It is a genre of fashion, but it entails storytelling through the way someone dresses. That was an exciting thought to me. I also found Paul Tazewell's journey really interesting. To have grown up in performing arts and then to now design costumes for massive productions, like Hamilton and Wicked, is incredible. It is almost congruence; we do not perfectly have a linear or straight path to careers. I also found Charlese Antoinette's story interesting. To go from Macy's to now designing costumes for film, just by being open to any opportunity because of her curiosity, was really inspiring. I was interested in collaboration in the costume designer role. Costume designers do not simply have one creative vision; they collaborate and work with directors, actors, and other practitioners to create a tangible character for the story.
This article is a testament to the unpredictability and continuous opportunities that the theater revolves around. Having some just overhear a conversation to being a staple part of the entertainment art community is a not unheard of career path. In this industry it is more about who you know than what you know how to do. Every day we create new never heard of ideas that nobody has even attempted to do before. Another thing that I took away from this article was the connection that costume designers have with actors. I always thought departments like scenic had to think of the actors more than most because they had to make sure someone is physically safe on a set. But costumes have to actually interact with the actors in order to create jaw dropping designs. If an actor is uncomfortable in what they're wearing it will show on stage. Overall costumes exist in such an interesting space within the theatrical community.
A couple of years ago I had always wondered how to break into an industry if you didn’t have any prior experience or education, I thought that would be extremely difficult to do especially for jobs in the theater industry specific as they are, but as I’ve come to learn just like any job out there the connections you have with other people will land you with more success than anything else will including a degree or any previous job you might have had. It’s just that in some places it’s easier to create that connection than others he was saying he made connections in his graduate program which I feel is a place where many job connections can be made, besides the education aspect of college the networking is the most import part that you get out of it and it’s important to seize any opportunities you get surrounding work during that time
This is a very important article, one of the best services that is provided by people in the field can be how to get into the field. It’s an obscure field to the average person and as such it makes it incredibly difficult to enter. The hardest part for many people is often simply knowing that it exists. It’s why so many people enter the field in grad school after learning about it in undergrad. Not a ton of people know what costume design or sound design out lighting design are. I’ve spent many conversations with relatives having to try and fail to explain what it is I do. And trying to describe what designing with light is to someone who has only ever worked finance is a very difficult undertaking. Usually I end up just giving up and leaving it at “I pick the lights” or something like that
This article really highlighted all the different ways and paths within those ways that people can become a costume designer or really any part of the technical theatre world. A lot of the advice I can see being useful to not only costumers but also lighting, sound, scenic, props, and all others. Especially when it comes to working with people and the collaboration process. Tazewell went through the different people that he needs to consider when designing a costume, all the different needs, like actors movement. Antoinette added on with balancing personal creative vision with the vision of the people in charge and making sure both are balanced as a personal creation and a collaborative process. What they said I could see in set design especially, since that is what I am most versed in, making sure the actors can move throughout the space and making sure the director’s vision of movement and silhouette are maintained while I still create a piece of my own.
I have talked about this before with classmates, but I feel that costumes designers have some of wildest and wacky career paths that have ever come out of theatre. In other design areas they usually have a pretty standard path of they were working in something adjacent and got pulled in or stumbled into a position and discovered they love theatre and all that it has to offer. For costume designers, I have heard of ones that were military pilots and flew attack helicopters before they were costume designers at all. Because of this, reading about how people become costume designers and all the different paths you can get to getting there is super cool. I value costume designers so much, because I think what they do is incredibly hard and can make or break the presentation of a character on stage. While I don’t have more interest in becoming a costume designer, it is nice to learn about that side of theatre and understand what my peers are aspiring to.
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