MUGSS Positions: Costume Designer

What you do

The Costume Designer is part of the Design team (with Set and Lighting Designers), putting together a detailed design of the Designers Vision for the Costume Manager (sometimes the same person!) to create into reality.

The thirty foot rule is something to bear in mind (it's less in the Dancehouse theatre because of the closeness of the front row, but the principle is sound): if it looks fine from thirty feet away, then it's fine. Equally, if you can't see the detail from thirty foot it doesn't matter how pretty it is, stitching those thirty 1cm wide butterflies isn't going to happen. There will also be a budget set by the Production Manager - it's useful to think about this to decide what is feasible, likely and what will avoid giving the Costume Manager a headache!

How to start:

Read the script. Talk to the Director, Production Managers and the rest of the Design team. Find out what the costumes are meant to convey about the characters wearing them, the time and place they're living in, their personalities. It sounds obvious but a prancing ballerina will need something very different from an engineer, in terms of actual clothing (tutu vs dungarees for example), fabrics, accessories. Different colours also convey different characteristics and emotions but these have to be checked with the Lighting Designer to make sure the colour you want will stay the colour you want when they light it. Also talk to the Set Designer - you probably also don't want to have all your characters dressed in scarlet if your set is primarily bright pink (unless you really do want that clashing, not quite sure if we're trying to match and failing look).

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