What is a Costume Designer Job Description, Duties & Salary

Table Of Content

• Insomniac - Beyond Wonderland at the Gorge 2024 Entertainment Wardrobe Specialist
• Spring Musical Costume Designer
• L.A.’s magical sound bath scene has something for everyone. Here are 11 of our favorites
• How is this career different than it was 10 or 25 years ago?
• What does a Costume Designer do?
• More From the Los Angeles Times

They are storytellers that utilize the craft of fashion design to tell a story. In this article, we’ll take a look at the differences between a fashion designer and costume designer, the responsibilities of a costume designer, and why those responsibilities make them integral to the filmmaking process. It also helps if you like spreadsheets, because there’s a lot to keep track of. Costume designers may be dressing not only the principal cast but also the guest stars and background characters.

Insomniac - Beyond Wonderland at the Gorge 2024 Entertainment Wardrobe Specialist

Many costume designers start out as production assistants in the costume department. Designing costumes and wardrobe is essentially a part of world building. What a character wears can tell you both where and when the story is taking place. Period pieces often entail research of what the fashion was during the time period the film takes place. Costume designers, who tend to have at least a bachelor's degree and at most a master's in costuming, usually get their start as costume makers.

Spring Musical Costume Designer

The movie, which played at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, spanned from the 1960s to the 1990s, so the costumes were important to signify where the story was in the timeline. Great costume designers create iconic looks while also adding depth to a film’s world, characters and story. Great movies are often praised for incredible direction, cinematography, or performances. But one of the more important aspects of the filmmaking process that unfortunately does not receive proper recognition is costume design.

L.A.’s magical sound bath scene has something for everyone. Here are 11 of our favorites

Research is not only relevant to period pieces, but all types of films. Even fantasy films, although they may take place in other worlds, are based off of some research. Even in a television show like Game of Thrones, costumes are designed from prior research. Where they differ, however, is what they are creating clothing for.

How is this career different than it was 10 or 25 years ago?

Experts in fashion history, practical clothes making, and theatrical design, costume designers plan and supervise the creation of the costumes and outfits worn by characters in a play or opera. Costumes help form the audience’s first impression of a character, even before any dialogue is spoken. This involves taking into consideration the time period, location, personalities, mood and more.

A fashion designer typically will be designing a wardrobe or outfit for a specific event such as a gala. Costume designers are creative, resourceful, observant, and analytical. They have a deep knowledge of and curiosity about fashion and costuming history, and are experts in using clothing and accessories to enhance character and story.

What does a Costume Designer do?

Because scenes are often shot out of order, designers need to plan accordingly. If a scene takes several days to film, the outfit has to be managed so it can appear the same way for continuity. Costume designers also need to remember whether an actor likes a particular undergarment or pantyhose, and if any prefers armpit shields. After getting a thorough understanding of a script and having creative discussions with the director, a film costume designer will enter the research phase of their job.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Typically once the research and story come together, sketches are made and look boards are made to present to the director a vision of the film’s final costume design. Once the director and/or producers sign off on the ideas, the movie costume designer gets their team to work. Take a look at costume designers Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson breakdown how they designed the costumes of The Irishman in this video by Vanity Fair. Costume designers are often confused with the job of a fashion designer and rightfully so. And, obviously, both must understand the craft of creating clothing.

Colleen Atwood: To Design The Costume, Understand The Character - NPR

Colleen Atwood: To Design The Costume, Understand The Character.

Posted: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 07:00:00 GMT [source]

And they must understand their character arcs, their internal and external conflicts, and how they fall into the world of a film. Here is Game of Thrones designer Michele Clapton breaking down she designed the iconic costumes of one HBO’s best television series. “We didn’t want any costume to say a particular time or place or moment, because all the Diana fans would know its historical place card,” says costume designer Jacqueline Durran. There were design programs for fashion 20 years ago, May said, but fewer of them catered specifically to costume design for film and television.

The office route refers to the folks who are in charge of operations, which includes buying or building the costumes. Duties vary, but in general, the costume supervisor handles a lot of the logistics, including hiring the crew and managing the budget. Costume coordinators are the planners who handle the receipts and work with the shoppers, who go out to purchase the clothing or fabrics needed after the designer comes up with the plan.

For “Never Have I Ever,” Perez hired a young graduate of L.A.’s Fashion Institute of Design and Manufacturing, Ammaarah Jalal, as a costumes production assistant. Even though he has been shopping in Artesia for decades, browsing through the boutiques with an Indian American designer was an entirely different experience, he said. As a production assistant, you’re likely making minimum wage on a 10- to 12-hour day with no benefits, he said. (Production assistants are not part of the union.) An entry level costumer in the union, however, will make between $30 and $45 an hour. And costumers often work 60 to 70 hours a week, so there’s a lot of overtime.

After working on commercials and a small feature film, she got a costume designer job on a big-budget film that allowed her to travel to Russia, Romania and Greece. And while that was a glamorous job, when she came back, she didn’t have another gig lined up. But overall, costume designers usually get paid less than other heads of departments, and the guild is advocating for equal pay. On the surface, Adams’ story of how she became a costume designer sounds like a fairy tale.

In the beginning, this may be for university, community, or other smaller productions. In the show Euphoria, designer Heidi Bivens uses specific colors for each character to give them a unique identity. Carothers was 21 when she took a job she wasn’t quite qualified for, and she said she kept getting fired but kept coming back. In hindsight, she thinks the only reason she got away with it was because the person who hired her was also inexperienced — and eventually got fired. Her boss was replaced by designer Karen Perry, who took Carothers under her wing.