The lead character starts the film as a junior clerk in a borrowed suit and ends it running the company. The audience should feel that change without anyone saying it. So the costume designer gives her a jacket that is slightly too big at the start, then slowly better cut, darker and more expensive as the story moves on. The costume designer is the person who decides what every character wears and why.
What a costume designer does
The costume designer works for the director and the producer and starts in pre-production. They break down the script per character and per scene, research the period and the world, and make sketches or mood boards for each look. They agree colours and textures with the production designer and test how fabrics look on camera with the director of photography.
Costumes are then bought, hired, made from scratch or altered. Once the casting director has cast the actors, fittings start, and each costume is adjusted to the person wearing it. The costume designer also decides what background actors wear. During the shoot the wardrobe supervisor runs the daily work on set, while the designer prepares the scenes still to come.
Responsibilities
- Break down the script into costume changes per character and scene
- Research and design the look of each character
- Decide what to buy, hire, make or alter
- Run fittings with actors and approve the final costumes
- Agree the overall look with the director, production designer and make-up and hair designer
- Hire and lead the costume department, including makers and the wardrobe team
- Keep the department within its budget
How the role touches the budget
The costume designer is responsible for the costume budget, which covers purchases, hire, making, alterations, cleaning and the department's crew. It is agreed with the line producer in pre-production and grows with every extra character, period setting or crowd scene. Duplicates add up too, because a costume that gets wet, bloody or torn in a scene is needed several times over. The designer decides where the money goes, for example spending more on the lead's key look and hiring stock costumes for the crowd.
How people become costume designers
Many study costume, fashion or theatre design. Most then work as costume assistants, buyers or costume supervisors before designing a production of their own. Theatre, short films and music videos are common places to build a first portfolio.
In TV and commercials
On a returning TV series the designer creates a wardrobe for each main character that grows over the seasons, often with less preparation time per episode than on a film. In commercials the role is often called stylist. A stylist usually sources and adapts existing clothing rather than designing it from scratch, and the work is done in days rather than weeks.