Costume design

The costume designer is the person whose responsibility is to drawing costumes for a film or stage production. The costume designer might also work together with a hair/wig master or a makeup designer. In European theatre the position is to some extent different as the theatre designer will design both costume and scenic elements.

Costume designers will normally seek to improve a character's person, to create an evolving plan of color, changing public status or period through the image design of garments and other means of dressing, distorting and enhancing the body - within the framework of the director's vision. At the same time, the costume designer must ensure that the designs allow the actor to shift in a manner consistent with the historical period and enables the actor to execute the director's blocking of the production costume without damage to the garments. Extra costume considerations include the durability and wash ability of garments, particularly in extended runs.

Dance costumes

The purpose of a dance costume is to improve the dancer’s body and the idea of the choreographer. “Costumes are clothes and they are art. They make the invisible ideas visible”. Dance costume has evolved costumes throughout time and involves a lot of different factors to create a costume that will connect the audience.

“Clothing damaged in dance training usually reflects period, culture, and performance traditions”. Throughout history clothing has turn into more cut down as dance costume becomes more physically demanding and free. In the past, costumes would dance in gardens and halls in elaborate and expensive costumes. However, in the eighteenth century they began to dance costumes in theaters and to “throw away cumbersome garments” by training in daily clothing. The ballerina Marie Tagline, in the nineteenth century discarded weighty costumes and began wearing what the standard costumes ballet uniform is today, a lightweight skirt. This change allowed the image of increased physical prowess. Marie Tagline also inspired the first tutu. As dance costumes increased in athleticism more of the body was revealed. The hemline of the tutu grew shorter until the leg was exposed and the pelvic area was framed in a minute kilt.

Fashion design

Fashion design is the applied art committed to clothing and lifestyle accessories created within the cultural and social influence of a specific time. Fashion design differs from costume design due to its core product having a built in obsolescence usually of one to two seasons. A season is defined as either autumn or spring. Fashion design is normally considered to have started in the 19th century with Charles Frederick Worth who was the first person to sew their tag into the garments that they created. While all article of clothing from any time stage are studied by academics as costume design, only clothing created after 1858 could be considered as fashion design. Some fashion designers are self-employed and design for individual clients. Other high-fashion designers cater to specialty stores or high-fashion department stores. These designers make original garments, as well as those that follow established fashion trends

Costume Designers Guild

A costume designer is a director's Key associated. Costume is an important tool the Director has to tell the story. Costume designers work intimately with actors and many actors find their characters in the dressing room. From the moment, a character appears on the monitor, before a word of discussion is spoken, the viewers know who they are. Great costuming is subtle - the audience is not supposed to notice the costumes but be affected by them. Modern costume, period costume and fantasy costume is created using the same creative path and process and designers recognize that each has its own challenges.Characters are integral to every movie and television production - and costume designers carry them to life. The creative collaborators: the cinematographers, the production designers and the costume designer’s work together to paint each frame of film, designing the invented universe of the script, as interpreted by the director.

Costume Design serves two equal purposes: to support the story by creating honest characters, and to provide stability within the frame of the film by providing color, texture and silhouette. Costumes and characters are always the "foreground action" because movies are about people. Costume designers are people experts, the artist anthropologists of the movies.

Types of fursuit

The standard fursuit is a full body costume that consists of a head, forepaws, hind paws and a body with an attached tail. In some cases, the tail is connected via a belt to the wearer and hangs out through a hole in the back of the body. A lot of suits include special padding or under suits to give the character its desired shape. Owners can expend less than one-hundred to many thousands of dollars on one fursuit, depending on complexity and materials used. Furry fans create their own using online tutorials or advice from newsgroups; the suits can also be purchased online or at conventions.

A limited suit or half-suit has all of the parts of the normal suit, with exception to the body. This allows the wearer to have different clothes over the paws, head and tail, such as another costume or street clothes. In partial suits, the tail is usually attached to a belt, and the arms and legs have sleeves that can go up as far as the shoulders and pelvis, respectively.

Most recently, a third type known as the three-quarter suit has been developed, which consists of a head, arms and pants made to look like the legs, tail and feet of a exact animal. This type of fursuit works fine for characters who only wear shirts.

Fursuit

Fursuits are animal costumes associated with furry fandom. They range from simple tails and ears to full costumes cooled by battery-powered fans. like to mascot suits, they allow the wearer to adopt another personality while in costume. Fursuits can be worn for personal enjoyment, effort or donations.

Fursuits are typically sold at conventions, or online by commission or public sale. Due to their delicate nature, they need special handling while washing. Fursuits are comparable to costumed characters and are similar in construction to the mascots and walk around characters used by theme parks and stage shows. The concept is also similar to cosplay, despite the latter's focus on Japanese culture.The term fursuit, believed to be coined in 1993 by Robert King, can also refer to animal mascot costumes in general, as opposed to human or inanimate object mascots. Fursuits have also been featured in visual mediums as backdrops or as part of a central theme.

Cosplay trends

A recent trend at Japanese cosplay actions is an add to in the popularity of non-Japanese dream and science literature movie characters, perhaps due to the international success of such films as The Matrix, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Characters from the Harry Potter films have a particularly high number of female fans in Japan, with female cosplayers playing either male or female characters, Draco Malfoy being an extremely popular choice.Cosplaying as characters of the opposite sex is called "crossplay", and cosplaying as characters who dress as the opposite sex is called "cross-dressing". The main reason that people do “crossplay” or “cross-dressing” is because in anime there is an abundance of bishounen .who are very attractive and feminine-looking male characters. Therefore, in the reality, females can often act as these characters better than the males. “Crossplay” and “cross-dressing” often coincide, but since some Japanese characters cross-dress to start with, it is possible to do one without the other.

For example, a female cosplayer cosplaying as a male character would be cross-dressing and crossplaying. However, a female cosplayer dressing as someone like Mana (male performer from the Visual Kei band Malice Mizer known for dressing in female clothes) would be crossplaying, but not cross-dressing; and a male cosplayer also cosplaying as Mana would be cross-dressing, but not crossplaying.

Halloween costumes

The wearing of costumes has turn out to be an important part of such holiday and festivals as Mardi gras and Halloween, and people may also wear costumes in combination with other holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. Mardi Gras costumes usually take the form of jesters and other fantasy characters, while Halloween costumes traditionally take the form of supernatural creatures such as ghosts, vampires, pop culture icons and angels. Christmas and Easter costumes typically portray mythical characters such as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny by putting on an animal costume. Costumes may serve to portray various other characters during secular holidays, such as an Uncle Sam costume worn on the Independence Day

Carnival Costume

It's the Carnival season again, and for many of us "playing mas" is an annual activity. Every year we spend thousands of dollars on carnival costumes, but do we really do all that we can to ensure that we get our monies worth.here are some helpful tips to ensure that this year's Carnival experience is much more enjoyable.

* Choose a Carnival costume within your budget, it is better to save through out the year rather than take a loan to buy costumes.
* Before collecting your costumes make sure that you do a final fitting, and make adjustments if required.
* When collecting your costumes, ensure that you receive all the pieces in the package including: headpieces, ankle bands, hand bands, top and bottom pieces.
* Ensure that your costumes are properly stitched, and examine the fabric for any holes, rips or shearing. Avoid choosing costumes that are made of flimsy materials.
* It is important to keep all your receipts in the event you have a complaint or plan to seek redress after the Carnival season is over.

Costumes and Textiles

The collection of costumes and textiles dates from around 1600 to the present day and includes some fine examples of seventeenth-century embroidery and eighteenth-century embroidered waistcoats as well as a great variety of nineteenth century women's and children's wear. The collection specializes in fine embroideries and costume with ornate surface decoration. The seventeenth-century examples include sleeve-panels with fashionable strawberry designs in red silks and gold thread. An elaborate man's cap and a lady's coif are decorated with Tudor rose and other floral motifs, while a frame picture of the same period has the classical figure of Caritas, surrounded by similar creatures created in numerous exquisitely detailed embroidery techniques.