But \u201cthe Met Gala is much more akin to art<\/a> than costume design,\u201d says Fellows, an assistant professor in UConn\u2019s dramatic arts department<\/a> who also is a New York City-based designer. \u201cThere is no script for the Met Gala. They give you a theme, and you determine what your interpretation is of that theme. Whereas, a costume designer tells a story from beginning to end, with an arc somewhere in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n A costume designer\u2019s work often starts months, if not a year, before a production ever goes on stage or in front of a camera, Fellows says, long before the actors playing leading and supporting roles are brought into the process.<\/p>\n Fellows says that once she has the written word or movement in hand, much like a student, she too hits the books, researching all she can about the world in which the production takes place: What\u2019s the time period? Is the setting invented? How does a character move?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m working with the lighting designer, a set designer, sometimes a projection designer, props, the director, a lot of times the choreographer, intimacy directors, fight coaches, and that\u2019s even before I get to meet the person who\u2019s actually inhabiting the clothes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Lately, she\u2019s been working on technical drawings for a show set in an imagined world, creating from scratch invented insignias on uniforms that resemble something real, but aren\u2019t actual. Those symbols, she notes, need to be recognizable enough that an audience can infer their meaning without having studied the invented dictionary from which they came.<\/p>\n Designing costumes for a traditional production of something like \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d is easier than for an invented world like that of \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale,\u201d she says, because the rules for a traditional Christmas production are laid out by history: People wore petticoats and corsets, and someone like Scrooge dressed in black.<\/p>\n \u201cIn \u2018A Handmaid\u2019s Tale,\u2019 there\u2019s so much inventive work to develop the universe and determine what those rules are,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat is the structure of the society? Why is it built this way? Who would make the clothes? Where would the fabric come from? The costume designer for that show is learning every single thing about the world that is not about clothing to figure out what the characters are wearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellows says a costume designer also must think practically and consider the things a character does in a production.<\/p>\n Costuming for a two-character show with no wardrobe changes might be straightforward and take only two weeks – unless, of course, during the show \u201cthose two actors have wings that need to explode out of their bodies, and they get lifted into the air and fly across the audience. That would suddenly jump to a three-month process because of all the rigging you have to figure out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\nTelling That Story<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Costumes Are All Around<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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