www.yahoo.com/entertainment: Ginna Claire Mason took the stage at Radio City Music Hall wearing an ivory dress decorated with sparkling beading for her character's final performance in the 2022 Hallmark movie "A Holiday Spectacular." Connecticut native and costume designer Keith Nielsen said that Mason's outfit was one of his favorites of the dozens he's created for movies he's worked on.
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I think working on a Hallmark movies has been one of my goals for life. I think they’re an essential to the Holidays and always make make me and whoever else is watching laugh (at how cliche it is). The discussion on costuming being more deep than how it appears to viewers I think is a common sentiment around production designers. However, when it comes to a Hallmark movie, I think any costume designer at least at CMU could nail one no sweat. I think high schoolers who are movie and/or theater enthusiasts could design one of these movies. The characters are nearly always basic stereotypes that looks like perfect versions of who they’re written to be. Even a character written as clumsy or not put together has a squeaky clean finish to their “mess.” They look like AI Generatvie Model was told to make a stereotypical female midwestern baker or a middle aged good looking business man from Wallstreet wearing a flannel. I imagine every design job is hard…but I feel 0 sympathy here.
I find this article about Nielsen’s approach to costume design really interesting because it reminds you of the basics of design and how it’s not always about big, glamorous outfits. Even though costumes aren’t something I usually pay a lot of attention to in Christmas movies, I liked how seriously he takes the work and how he tries to avoid the super stereotypical red-and-green holiday look. The way he talks about starting from a coat or thinking about how 1950s clothes affect the way people walk shows that he’s always focused on character, not just aesthetics. I also like how organic his creative process is—writing down colors and feelings and letting the ideas flow naturally. Even if the stories are simple, the amount of thought he puts into creating moments that feel specific to the actor and the setting is really admirable, and it shows how even the simplest looking costumes take a lot of time and care.
Hearing from a Hallmark costume designer is a unique experience coming from the context of my family. A couple people in my family really enjoy them and watch every season almost religiously, but most others, including myself, tend to laugh at the cheesy storytelling and basic plot formula. This was especially funny reading Nielson saying, “I don’t put everybody in red and green,” because that adds to the “basic” concept. I do appreciate this interview, though. He, unsurprisingly, demonstrates a clear care for making memorable costumes that are unique to his productions. I’m not surprised because Hallmark movies are well-produced, and to be hired as a designer to work on them would likely not be a fluke. It’s usually just the writing and directing of a Hallmark movie that seems worthy of some laughs. I also thought this was cool because of the mentions of Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes, which I just saw for the first time the day before reading this! Working for either of those big names must have been an incredible experience for Nielson.
I like that this designer talks about how costumes can be influenced by the setting and how important it is that the character and the setting flow with the costumes. I think it’s cool that the designer goes to set to see what it looks like, and talks to actors about their characters to kind of make sure that the costume is actually gonna fit right into the world that is being built. Sometimes the costumes help to dictate the setting and the characters, and sometimes the setting and the character dictate the costume and it’s important to know when you need to be looking at the set and the character for the costume. I like how they talk about making a moment and how if you just buy something online you’re not really making a moment in the same way that if you make a unique piece for someone that is a moment.
As someone who doesn’t care too much for the general plot of most hallmark movies, the other design elements always have to shine through. Attention to detail, especially in costuming is very interesting to me, especially since dressing for the holidays usually requires a lot more layers to work with due to the weather. There’s so much canvas to work with, though it all has to be very deliberate. My parents really like watching hallmark movies together, which is about the only time I’ve seen this kind of film and while I never knew what was happening, I could usually assume if there's a man and a woman in the same shot they love each other and also they have cute outfits. I also appreciate some acknowledgement that just because they’re for the holidays doesn’t mean every piece has to be green and red. Sometimes that gets exhausting, where I think this kind of costume design, while simple on the surface, is a very intentional breath of fresh air from the typical festive media we’ll see.
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