CSUF’s Costume Design Department Breathes Life in Clothes

Echoing the infamous words of supermodel Heidi Klum on Lifetime’s fashion competition show, “Project Runway”, “In fashion, one day you’re in, and the next day, you’re out.”

Fashion has a reputation of being cutthroat, but it also catapulted fashion designers into high esteem. 

Costume designers don’t have a “Project Runway”. They produce beautiful work with any recognition at the level of their fashion industry colleagues. Costume design isn’t just picking out clothes on the rack for contemporary productions or making sure period pieces are accurate: it’s also ensuring the pieces are a functioning cog in the overall machine of storytelling, something that’s absent in fashion.

“You don’t want to just put anything onto an actress,” Katie Wilson, an assistant professor for costume design at Cal State Fullerton, said. “It’s not about finding a dress and putting it on them. How does that dress evolve into that character’s personality? That’s where fashion is different.” 

Wilson has been a professor at CSUF for three years, previously teaching at Chapman University and UC Irvine. When she’s not teaching, she designs for opera and theater productions across Southern California. Wilson has created costumes for productions that bring Shakespearean plays to modern times, such as New Swan 2017 production of  “Taming of the Shrew”. For Wilson, she said modern pieces are often the most difficult ones, as it’s hard to create something that already exists.

Grace Morrison as Katherina in New Swan’s 2017 production of “Taming of the Shrew”, designed by Katie Wilson. Photos by Paul Kennedy.

“They (fashion industry) think of their version of what they do in fashion as art,” Wilson said. “It's all about the look. It has nothing to do with function or purpose or a character or a backstory.”

“It’s entertainment. Like, ‘Look at me, I’m going to entertain you through visual experiences’,” said Carina Holley, fashion design student turned CSUF costume design graduate. 

The costume design world and the fashion industry has had its public fights and feuds over the decades. The late Edith Head, multi-Oscar winning costume designer, has long pushed to be recognized for her work on Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s. The “Sabrina” dress was credited to Hubert de Givenchy, but Head and the Paramount costume department actually designed the dress. 

Wilson said there’s a disparity with costume design, as costume designers are paid the least. Film and television costuming departments are called “wardrobe” instead of designers. She said she’s sure that costume designers want to get credit for it, but their name isn’t mentioned. Rather, the production and the character associated are credited.

“The only way people can relate to costumes is through the Oscars,” Wilson said, stating people’s misconceptions of an ultimate goal for a costume designer. 

“My role as a costume designer is to get people to be inspired by art and creativity and want to do it themselves.” 

Opposite of Wilson, Holley said her end goal is to work in television and film, as she is deeply inspired by shows like “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones”. She has previously majored in fashion design, but switched over to theater after seeing how cutthroat the fashion industry was.

“It’s a very dog-eat-dog world in the fashion industry,” Holly said, echoing Klum’s mantra. “For me and my type of personality, I wasn’t into that. I wasn’t trying to compete with people.”

Holley has been in a few productions for Cal State Fullerton as a costume designer for CSUF’s 2019 production of “Picnic” and “Vinegar Tom”, originally slated for the 2020 season. For the production, actors wore pastel patterns to emphasize on the story’s themes. 

Jessica Schreiber and Kathleen Chavez in CSUF’s 2019 production of “Picnic”, designed by Carina Holley. Photos by Jordan Kubat.

Holley said fashion viewed models as mannequins that execute a fashion designer’s dream of a show, costume design works alongside with the rest of the production team in order to execute an immersive storytelling experience. When asked whether or not she would wear a piece that she made for productions, it took her a while to decide. They’re not something that can be worn without context.

“When you’re immersed into the story, everyone relates to it in the same way. We’re doing it together. We know the story together,” Holley said. “Getting to design these characters, you get the sense that these characters are your family as well.” 

This is why costume designers for these shows are regarded highly, not just because of the intricacy of period costuming. We can’t be attached to these characters without the immersiveness that costumes bring to these characters. Even when Queen Cersei undergoes her Walk of Shame naked, that in itself is a costume, leaving us feeling rawer than the abstract nature of any fashion show.

This article was written for a class assignment at Cal State Fullerton for the Spring 2020 semester.