Designers

Theatre is known to include all other kinds of art in addition to the performance element of it, such as visual and auditory art. The visual art includes set design and costumes, and for the audio would be the music or score. Costume designers are artists, and in the theatre, they are a big part of the visual effects of a production. They are partly responsible for creating the characters, since the costumes are an intimate part of what and who the characters are. "Visually, performer and costume are perceived as one; they merge into a single image onstage...Closely related to costumes are makeup, hairstyles, and masks." (Theatre: The Lively Art, 172).

Designers must have an understanding of the play and its characters to make effective costumes. When they start working, they, like high fashion designers, will often first draw images of their visions and build the costumes from there.

(An example of what a costume sketch would look like. Photo courtesy of Google).


To acquire costumes for a performance, the designer has two options: pull costumes or build them. To pull a costume is to "choose a costume from an inventory owned by a theatre company" (173), and to build a costume is to "create a costume by scratch in a costume shop" (173). Sometimes designers will do both; it all depends on what the production calls for and what is available to them.

According to Wilson and Goldfarb, there are six objectives of a costume designer:

1. Help establish the tone and style of a production.
2. Indicate the historical period of a play and the locale in which it is set.
3. Indicate the nature of individual characters or groups in a play: their situations in life, their occupations, their personalities.
4. Show relationships among characters: separate major characters from minor ones, contrast one group with another.
5. Meet the needs of individual performers: make it possible for an actor or actress to move freely in a costume; allow a performer to dance or engage in a sword fight, for instance; when necessary, allow performers to change quickly from one costume to another.
6. Be consistent with the production as a whole, especially with other visual elements.

This list perfectly summarizes the duties, responsibilities and expectations of a costume designer. They are an integral part of fabricating a performance, of bringing it to its full potential.

(Above are pictures from the longest-running musical, The Phantom of the Opera. The story takes place in the late 18th century, and the costumes are designed to complement the time period as well as the ambiance of the sets. The Phantom mostly wears dark colors, complete with a black cape, while the female character, Christine, is most often depicted wearing white. Photos courtesy of Google.)



Source:

Wilson, Edwin; Goldfarb, Alvin. Theatre: The Lively Art. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print. (Pages 172-173).