Wiki Page, Oklahoma High School- Drama/Theatre Course (OK Art Tech): 4.4 Costume Designer

Wiki Page
2025-03-06T08:26:17-06:00

Costume Design

A costume is everything a performer wears on stage, including clothing, wigs, hats, and makeup. These items have to be carefully considered when designing a costume.

Costuming is an important part of any production because it helps to:

Establish a character

Understand the performance

Support the style of the play

Designing costumes is a team effort. Costume designers must work with many people to make sure the vision of the performance is achieved in the end. Watch the video below about a costume designer and their many jobs.

Video: Working in Theatre: Costume Designer

Center Theatre Group. (2016. Nov 2). Working in Theatre: Costume Designer. [Video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/cLW45yeCoNA?si=e-SHoOs00Xx8f0bw

Click the button at the bottom of each video to access the closed captions.

Importance of Costume Design

Not only does the costume help the audience understand the story, but it also helps the actor "become" the character.

The costume of a character can:

Provide basic information such as age, gender, occupation, and economic and social backgrounds

Reveal information about a character's personality (e.g., a shy character might wear plain clothes so they don't draw attention)

Portray a character's circumstance (e.g., a character's clothes may become torn or dirty after a long journey)

The pictures below show the costumes of Jean Valjean in a production of Les Miserables. Even if you've never seen this musical, you can probably guess that the character faced some difficulties between the first picture and the second picture.

Can you think of a character that changed how they looked throughout a movie, TV show, video game, or other performance?

Colleen Atwood is an Oscar-winning costume designer. Read her quote below:

Costumes are the first impression that you have of the character before they open their mouth- it really does establish who they are. -Colleen Atwood