Performance costume has always played a huge role in my identity. When I was 4 years old, I enrolled into a competitive dance school in North London and then stage make-up and Lycra became a second skin all the way until I was 17. I think without realising, I grew up having an extensive understanding of the power of costume in telling a story and how it can transform a person into a character.
Experiencing first-hand how a costume can help a performer slip into their role has been vital in influencing my practice as a designer, because it’s our job to help provide the context behind a character and their personality through clothing. Although going through school I hadn’t really thought of costume as a career path, I just knew I wanted to do something creative.
Before university, I had studied an Art and Design Foundation course at UAL in South London where I had rediscovered costume and loved it. I quickly started looking at university options, which was when my tutor at UAL told me the best option was AUB. He praised the quality of the BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance (DCP) course, the lecturers and the community that comes with it – I can confirm he was right about all three.
After exploring a variety of pathways within performance design in first and second year, I decided for my final year I wanted to specialise in purely costume design for both theatre and film. For my Final Major Project, I wanted to put myself forward for lead costume designer for one of the AUB Productions: This Happy Breed.
The first term was the initial design process where I began gathering my research, inspiration, discussions with the director and his vision and then I started my sketches. In total, this play required 60+ costume designs! The play was set between the two World Wars (1919–39) in Clapham Common, London, so I spent a lot of my time in the library analysing the silhouettes of that period, photocopying from original '20s/'30s fashion magazines. I then start compiling these all into my sketchbooks which really helps me to visualise the overall essence of that scene or character, which I later have next to me when I draw my designs.
In second term, I started working with a big team of students on BA (Hons) Costume, both makers and supervisors, who were all incredible and played a fundamental role in the costumes looking as good as they did, and I couldn’t have done it without them! I learned so much about working with these students and how much I enjoy collaborating with others and how it improved my final designs massively. Their creativity, skill and organisation were inspiring and improved how I worked. I think when you work with such a driven and talented team it pushes you to do your job well so that they can do theirs and vice versa. We all had so much to learn from each other, but we made it fun, and this was evident in the final show.
One thing I would say that I have learned from working on this play and the advice I would give to future students studying this course would be to be open to change. I think it is vital to be fluid and flexible as a designer, knowing when to stand up for certain choices you feel strongly about, or to step back and take advice with an open mind.
This also comes hand-in-hand with taking a step back from your work – I find that a lot of the time when I work, I become so engrossed and obsessed with ideas and getting it right that I start to lose sight of what I’m doing. But I’m starting to realise that stepping back and taking a break from it is okay, and that when I come back to my work, I can see it from a new perspective. When you’re able to do that, you will start to see your work improving massively, and you start to learn so much about what methods work for you as a designer and what doesn’t.
Lastly, my final piece of advice for future students would be to try it all! It sounds cliché, but, especially on this course, if I had just done the same things and not tried anything new (even if I thought I wouldn’t do it well), I would still be at the same place I was when I walked into uni on the first day. You have the opportunity to try so many new methods of working, so many cool machines or dye-room techniques and all the rest that you might not have access to when you leave – so just try it and have fun!
Thanks to my tutors on DCP, I feel confident diving straight into the industry and so, after I graduate, I plan to move back to London and search for a trainee costume assistant job in TV or film!
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