Types of Costume Designers

Professional Costume Designers generally fall into three types

* Freelance Designer

* Residential Designer

* Academic Designer

Responsibilities of Costume Designer

A Costume Designer is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered part of the "production team", alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The costume designer might also collaborate with a hair/wig master or a makeup designer. In European theater the role is somewhat different as the theater designer will design both costume and scenic elements.

* Costume Designers will typically seek to enhance a character's persona, and/or to create an evolving plot of color, changing social status or period through the visual design of garments and other means of dressing, distorting and enhancing the body - within the framework of the director's vision.
* At the same time, the designer must ensure that the designs allow the actor to move in a manner consistent with the historical period and enables the actor to execute the director's blocking of the production without damage to the garments.

* Additional considerations include the durability and wash-ability of garments, particularly in extended runs.

* The designer must work in consultation with not only the director, but the set and lighting designers to ensure that the overall design of the production works together.

* The designer needs to possess strong artistic capabilities as well as a thorough knowledge of pattern development, draping, drafting, textiles and costume/fashion history as well as awareness of poise when in period dress, and be sensitive to the creative direction that the performer wants to take his/her character.

* A costume designer creates the look of a character in film , television or in a stage production.

History of Costume Designing

In its Earliest form, Costumes consisted of Theatrical Prop Masks from the time of the ancient greeks. Costume design evolved as the need for more elaborate and detailed characterizations were needed as the performances became more intricate and more complex characters began to emerge on stage. Defining each character separately allowing the audience the ability to follow a storyline with a conceptualized look defined prior to a performance was, and is needed as part of pre-production preparations.

Early Performers were generally male, therefore costuming was needed for gender disguise so as to create the illusion of the opposite sex. Costuming also helps create other character building imagery such as age. The leading characters will have more detail and design to make them stand out and relate a sense of trust to the audience. Styles and technique has changed over the centuries but have maintained basic principles of clothing design yet geared towards pushing the characters traits out in its appearance.

Know about Costume Designing

Costume Design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such. Costume design should not be confused with Costume coordination which merely involves altering existing clothing.

Four Types of Costumes are Used

* Theatrical De­sign

* Historical

* Fantastic

* Dance and Modern.

Designs are first sketched out, and approved then either draped on a form or a pattern drafted. Along with the fabricated portion, the costume may require accessories such as footwear, hats and head dresses for the actors to wear, but it may also include designing masks, makeup, wigs, underwear or other unusual specialty items, such as the full body animal suits for the characters in the musical Cats (designed by John Napier, winner of the 1983 Tony Award for Best Costume Design). Costumes budgets will generally be have as high a cost as other departments or theatrical needs such as set design.

Costume designers create the look of each character by designing clothes and accessories the actors will wear in performance. Depending on their style and complexity, costumes may be made, bought, revamped out of existing stock or rented. Their designs need to faithfully reflect the personalities of the characters in the script.

The shapes, colors and textures that a costume designer chooses make an immediate and powerful visual statement to the audience. Creative collaboration among the costume designer, the director and the set and lighting designers ensures that the costumes are smoothly integrated into the production as a whole.

Stage costumes can provide audiences with information about a character's occupation, social status, gender, age, sense of style and tendencies towards conformity or individualism. As well, costumes can:

* Reinforce the mood and style of the production

* Distinguish between major and minor characters

* Suggest relationships between characters

* Change an actor's appearance

* Suggest changes in character development and age

* Be objects of beauty in their own right

Costume designs also need to include any accessories such as canes, hats, gloves, shoes, jewelry or masks. These costume props add a great deal of visual interest to the overall costume design. They are often the items that truly distinguish one character from another.