When it comes to film, there are some truly memorable costumes that stay in our memories long after we’ve left the cinema. Whether the imposing, dark and mechanical look of Darth Vader, to the grand, heroic red and blue Superman or Spiderman outfits, costumes have a language and art to them that brings larger scale characters from popular fiction to life. Behind every iconic outfit, there is a costume designer and their impact on emulating said outfits can’t be overstated.

Costume design is defined as the creation of clothing for the appeal of a character or performer and can refer to a character’s style of dress particular to a race, class, or period of time.  A character’s design, whether in live-action or animated, can benefit from giving a lot of detail and personality into their outfits without needing to spell out specific parts of story or character. Tarzan’s shirtless loin-cloth attire gives the impression of being a jungle man who is uncommon with typical human clothing, the Joker’s loud, colorful, and clown-like attire shows the showmanship and deranged enjoyment of the clown prince of crime, and Walter White’s casual slightly dorky high-school teacher presentation makes the transformation into the cold-hearted drug kingpin all the more noticeable. Much like most other aspects that are prominent within theatre and West-based entertainment and film-making, costume design originated with ancient Greek festivals, the late Middle Ages, the Elizabethan period, and Shakespearean era, as well as had its own flourishment in Eastern theatre with Chinese and Japanese costuming.  During the 19th century, most costumes were rented out as opposed to created, and whenever costume designers were involved, they were rarely credited. As the 20th century came about, names started to get more recognition from people who worked on theatre, film, and TV. It wasn’t until 1948 when the Academy Awards recognized best Costume Design as its own category and with the financial recession during the 50s and 60s and Hollywood studios moving over to TV, irreplaceable records of these designers’ works were destroyed and forgotten about. There were always names during the Golden Age of Hollywood and onward of costume designers who brought some truly memorable garbs to movies of their time like Gilbert Adrian, Jean Louis (Gilda, `1946), Edith Head (A Place in the Sun, 1951) and Kym Barrett (The Matrix Reloaded, 2003), but they were more widely appreciated by the masses, as fashion became more than just a novelty and started to form a sensation of its own. It’s believed by Adrienne Munich that costume design actually changed America’s international economy through its creation of popular film costume and dominated the garment market against the Parisian couture which were usually the heaviest hitters since the seventeenth century, bringing attention to the craft while also boasting the American economy and giving America its own clothing identity (Fashion in Film, Adrienne Munich, 2011, pg.19)

The purpose of a costume design actually has strength outside of the screen as well as on it. Elizabeth Leese found in her studies on Costume Design that especially during the advent of cinema, it acted as a way for women to keep in touch with fashion trends prevalent in their society, showing off forms and styles without having to search them up in a newspaper or magazine. Fashion stores during the time were willing to take part in the films, so it boasted modern fashion for those of the period as well as gave a window into past fashion trends that wouldn’t normally be available for them, and it shows that costume designers don’t only need to prove to their audiences that they can effectively replicate a specific garment or style from any era, but that they can expand from these attires and make their own. (Costume Design in the Movies: An Illustrated Guide to the Works of 157 Great Designers, Elizabeth Leese, 1991, pg.9). The role of a costume designer is to bring life and color to the character they are designing for. They often work with the director, scenic, lighter designer, sound designer and other creative personnel, which also means working with wig masters, hair stylists, and make-up artists. They also have to work with people like the lighting department and even the cinematographers in order to make sure that their specific choice of clothing, either bought or created, doesn’t conflict with the choice of shot for the film or if the color works with the specific lighting. Much like production design, research is imperative when creating a costume design, knowing the ins and outs of the time period or location being visualized and memorizing the style, color, fabric composition and fit of the body. Costume designer Amelia Gebler stated how it also taps into the psychological aspect of a character or a location in order to fully encapsulate said period of time or personality they are trying to convey, ‘’the longer you do the job, the more knowledge you have in your head already so you can sort of just jump to it, but I would say most of the job Is research and then I would say execution is 30% whereas research and understanding character is 70%’’.

Costuming isn’t reserved only for cinematic or theatrical wear. The term was traditionally used for specific or appropriate garbs of clothing for certain activities, like swimming costume, dance costume, etc, only to be replaced with more commonly used terms like clothes, attire, robes, or wear, with the term costume being reserved for unusual types of wear like for Halloween or mascots. An activity that allows any person to dress up in a fancy costume is cosplaying. Growing from the practice of fan costuming from sci-fi conventions, cosplay (a term coined from costume play) started as a Japanese term that grew into its own phenomenon in the 1990s and has become a practice that many from all genders and cultures can take part in at fan or media conventions. Since society has become more welcoming and accepting to those that wish to express themselves in a different manner, but also for enjoying pop culture regardless of age, the boom for cosplaying has increased more vocally and has led to more people either buying or creating their own clothes, attachments (like swords, charms, or other trinkets) and heavily stylized wigs. Wig designer, Arena King, found that her passion for wig styling came about due to her love of anime and saw that these crazy and colorful designs deserved to be seen and worn by real people, which lead to her creating and starting her own small online business of styling and selling anime-based wigs to people.

‘’we’re so heavily reliant on the internet and people can just kind of see whatever they want whenever they want, and naturally people are a lot more accepting of the anime and the pop culture things these days and they’re more down to try new things, because as mentioned before back then, If you expressed that you liked anime or something, people could kind of just shun you and be like ‘’oh that’s for kids’’, but now everyone loves it and are more accepting of it, so they all just kind of want to be the same, be together. It’s definitely not just anime, anime and pop culture and just fictional things, it’s definitely shaped wigs, costume, and any shape of dress up media. Definitely a huge influence on it.’’.

Much like how fashion and designing has various other aspects that go into creating a complete image or look, costume design relies a lot on stuff like wig-masters and make-up artist to complete a character’s look. Make-up artists have a strong connection with the actors for the film and are responsible for conveying the actor’s sensibility by preparing the actor’s face, neck, forearms, and hands. The work is redone at least once a day and must remain consistent throughout shooting. Members of the make-up team include the make-up artist and his or her assistant.  A wig’s purpose has become less crucial in modern cinema due to actor’s either being willing to style their hair into unique looks, or if a character or project doesn’t require a drastically different looking hairstyle, but they still can come up in films where characters have overly stylized hair color or structure, like in an anime, fantasy or superhero film or show.

Costume Design is responsible for several iconic outfits throughout cinemas lifespan, whether through being strikingly realistic to a location, time period of country, or by being incredibly flashy, dramatic and colorful in the best way possible,  but it also impacted more on the global scale than many people would have anticipated, and has proven its worth on film-making as a whole.