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Friday, October 09, 2026
The BBC designer who dressed Doctor Who and Kate Bush
www.bbc.com/news: Standing behind some of British television's most memorable costumes, Joyce Hawkins helped shape the look of programmes watched by millions, yet her work was rarely seen beyond the screen itself.
5 comments:
Griffin Chyall
said...
As someone who was a big Doctor Who fan, this article captured my attention. Because I am in the field I commonly find costume designer's sketches, fabrics, and work on display. However, I often feel that museums or other public places ignore highlighting the process it took someone to get to a final product. Maybe because I am not looking in the right places, but I believe this lack of appropriate credit is more prevalent in the film industry.
I am happy to hear that Birmingham City University is opening an exhibit about an artist who's profession is often overlooked. As someone as talented as Joyce Hawkins deserves recognition, and I would be curious to see the interest at the Costume Matters exhibit. I find it particularly fascinating that exhibition's purpose of the bring awareness to an overlooked part of television production, as well as how costume design has evolved over the decades.
I clicked on this because I was obsessed with Doctor Who to the point where the theme song is extremely comforting to me. This article makes me realize the importance of building relationships within the industry. It seems like the BBC continually hired this woman to design costumes for years and years and years, which really shows that if you do good work, and people enjoy working with you, the work will come. They talk about the misunderstood art of TV costuming in the article and I wonder what is different about costumes for TC in particular. I know that for theatre, there are a lot of challenges based on the play and proximity to the audience, but what are the new challenges that arise with television? That also leads me to wonder if those challenges blend when working on live tv – like SNL. Anyway, this is a great tribute to her and shows how valued she was to the production of BBC shows.
As a big doctor who fan, whovian if you will, I always love to see how the production of the show goes about functioning from episode to episode with different writers and creative teams. I am also a fan of Kate Bush and was surprised to know that there is an overlap of creative teams who work on their productions. The BBC certainly employs an amazingly creative team to put together their shows and events. I will definitely recommend visiting this exhibit to my friends who live in the area. It is important to recognize the work and detail that goes into each and every aspect of a production, especially one like Doctor Who that can go from Victorian England to different planets from episode to episode necessitating a new style of costumes each episode. Doctor Who is one of my all time favourite shows and I love to see the behind the scenes work that goes into making each masterpiece of an episode.
I found this article to be really interesting! Personally, though I can’t say I ever really watched Doctor Who or Kate Bush, I am still really interested in the behind the scenes process for how such iconic characters and stars get made. I think it’s especially interesting to look at how influential Joyce Hawkins’ work was - though she died earlier this year, her designs and costumes still have a resounding impact today. I think it’s fantastic that Birmingham City University is giving her such a spotlight with their exhibit; oftentimes, I feel that the creatives behind TV programs are overlooked or disregarded, so it’s really nice to see her getting the recognition she deserves. Personally, this article made me really want to look more into both Joyce Hawkins and television creation as a whole, and I would absolutely love the chance to learn more about her and her work!
Costume designers who move smoothly between genres like this are fascinating to me. I thought a lot about moving through genres and time especially after seeing X. I thought our costume designer had done a really phenomenal job of showcasing time in a way that didn't make it confusing for the watcher. Regarding this article, what I am particularly interested in is whether the designer’s approach has some common elements in these different domains, and whether silhouette and texture choices in design remain the same despite these changes in context. Doctor Who has such an extensive history in design that working for it automatically implies being immediately aware of many prior decisions in this field. Working for a celebrity like Kate Bush is also very interesting, as the image created for her becomes inseparable from the beloved music especially as her music has become more popular for our generation in the past 6 years.
5 comments:
As someone who was a big Doctor Who fan, this article captured my attention. Because I am in the field I commonly find costume designer's sketches, fabrics, and work on display. However, I often feel that museums or other public places ignore highlighting the process it took someone to get to a final product. Maybe because I am not looking in the right places, but I believe this lack of appropriate credit is more prevalent in the film industry.
I am happy to hear that Birmingham City University is opening an exhibit about an artist who's profession is often overlooked. As someone as talented as Joyce Hawkins deserves recognition, and I would be curious to see the interest at the Costume Matters exhibit. I find it particularly fascinating that exhibition's purpose of the bring awareness to an overlooked part of television production, as well as how costume design has evolved over the decades.
I clicked on this because I was obsessed with Doctor Who to the point where the theme song is extremely comforting to me. This article makes me realize the importance of building relationships within the industry. It seems like the BBC continually hired this woman to design costumes for years and years and years, which really shows that if you do good work, and people enjoy working with you, the work will come.
They talk about the misunderstood art of TV costuming in the article and I wonder what is different about costumes for TC in particular. I know that for theatre, there are a lot of challenges based on the play and proximity to the audience, but what are the new challenges that arise with television? That also leads me to wonder if those challenges blend when working on live tv – like SNL. Anyway, this is a great tribute to her and shows how valued she was to the production of BBC shows.
As a big doctor who fan, whovian if you will, I always love to see how the production of the show goes about functioning from episode to episode with different writers and creative teams. I am also a fan of Kate Bush and was surprised to know that there is an overlap of creative teams who work on their productions. The BBC certainly employs an amazingly creative team to put together their shows and events. I will definitely recommend visiting this exhibit to my friends who live in the area. It is important to recognize the work and detail that goes into each and every aspect of a production, especially one like Doctor Who that can go from Victorian England to different planets from episode to episode necessitating a new style of costumes each episode. Doctor Who is one of my all time favourite shows and I love to see the behind the scenes work that goes into making each masterpiece of an episode.
I found this article to be really interesting! Personally, though I can’t say I ever really watched Doctor Who or Kate Bush, I am still really interested in the behind the scenes process for how such iconic characters and stars get made. I think it’s especially interesting to look at how influential Joyce Hawkins’ work was - though she died earlier this year, her designs and costumes still have a resounding impact today. I think it’s fantastic that Birmingham City University is giving her such a spotlight with their exhibit; oftentimes, I feel that the creatives behind TV programs are overlooked or disregarded, so it’s really nice to see her getting the recognition she deserves. Personally, this article made me really want to look more into both Joyce Hawkins and television creation as a whole, and I would absolutely love the chance to learn more about her and her work!
Costume designers who move smoothly between genres like this are fascinating to me. I thought a lot about moving through genres and time especially after seeing X. I thought our costume designer had done a really phenomenal job of showcasing time in a way that didn't make it confusing for the watcher. Regarding this article, what I am particularly interested in is whether the designer’s approach has some common elements in these different domains, and whether silhouette and texture choices in design remain the same despite these changes in context. Doctor Who has such an extensive history in design that working for it automatically implies being immediately aware of many prior decisions in this field. Working for a celebrity like Kate Bush is also very interesting, as the image created for her becomes inseparable from the beloved music especially as her music has become more popular for our generation in the past 6 years.
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