Costume design
Designs the clothes, shoes and accessories of the characters in a theater, film, TV, opera or dance production, so they say who each character is and work on stage or on camera.
What problem it addresses
A costume isn't chosen by taste: it has to show who the character is, read well under that light and at that distance, and allow movement, quick changes and many performances.
Principles
Character first
Clothes tell someone's period, trade and personality before they speak.
Made to perform
The costume is tested on the person who wears it and in motion, not only on the sketch.
Part of the scene
Color and texture are decided together with the space, the light and the camera.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Test each costume on the person who will wear it, in motion and under the real light, before opening night.
Avoid
Dressing characters in whatever is in fashion without asking what each garment says.
Don’t fall for it
Look at the costume from the back row or in close-up, and check it can be changed in time.
Connections
Authors and works
Royal Decree 633/2010 (Spain)
Includes costume for theater and film in the profile of the fashion specialty of higher Design studies.
- 2010
Aoife Monks
Proposed not treating the costume as secondary to the performer, or the other way round. In each performance, body and costume merge, and the audience helps give them meaning.
- 2012
Deborah Nadoolman Landis
Brought together sixteen film costume designers, who explain how they imagine a character, work within a budget and collaborate with directors, actors and production designers.
- 2021
Sofia Pantouvaki and Peter McNeil
Gathered research that treats costume as an active part of making performance, an object that gives shape to ideas born of teamwork.
Sources
Original sources
- Monks, A. (2010). The actor in costume. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Real Decreto 633/2010, de 14 de mayo, por el que se regula el contenido básico de las enseñanzas artísticas superiores de Grado en Diseño establecidas en la Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación. Boletín Oficial del Estado, 137, June 5, 2010, 48517–48533. View source: Real Decreto 633/2010, de 14 de mayo, por el que se regula el contenido básico de las enseñanzas artísticas superiores de Grado en Diseño establecidas en la Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación. Boletín Oficial del Estado, 137, June 5, 2010, 48517–48533.)
Academic reviews
- Pantouvaki, S., & McNeil, P. (Eds.). (2021). Performance costume: New perspectives and methods. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Secondary sources
- Nadoolman Landis, D. (2012). FilmCraft: Costume design. Focal Press.
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