Right now, many more young people than before have aspired to work in industries that involve designing and producing dozens of types of fashions, whether for retail, large-scale events, cinema or theatre.
I was interested in what steps, trials and challenges entail during the process of creating a piece of fashion, so I interviewed my older sister, Year 13 BRIT School costume student Hannah McDonald, to learn specifically what factors are involved in the art of costume design for school drama shows.
When I asked her what she did before her reading of the script and the main research processes, she described that: “We get the Director’s brief, a document that the Director writes up talking about all their ideas for how they want the play to look and be presented. It will include things like what they think the set design should look like, the costumes, the lighting, the sound, and in my one I usually highlight anything relevant to costume. I then read the script.” She also spoke about how she usually creates mood boards of ideas and materials and sketches of multiple different designs before settling on a final one, and elaborated that “you research everything under the sun” in order to make the work as authentic and realistic as possible.
When talking about the production process, she said that “there’s lots of other stuff that goes on in that period, like budgeting, measuring the cast and just organising in general, because if you have quick changes in a show, you need to know how to do them.”
Another very important question I asked her is where costume design can take you in life, and what career paths it unlocks. She answered: “For film, it all needs to be there as they are filming it, and for theatre it all needs to be there when the show is performed. It’s very different because it’s live media and non-live media. You can go into costume itself, makeup, prosthetics or SFX for both film and theatre. You could work as an assistant, a designer, a technician, there are so many different jobs available and it all comes down to what skills you have and what skills you want to use in a future career.”
Finally, I asked her what she hopes to do in the future, and she said: “I am applying for university over the next few days to go and study costume design further. I’d like to study for stage and screen, there’s a couple of courses available that will offer me that with a clear distinction between both as I haven’t decided which part of the industry I’d most like to work in yet. But, ultimately, I want to work as a designer.”
So, if you’re interested in working in costume design or any other aspects of live theatre, you can apply to join the BRIT school to study production arts in Year 12.
