Theatrical Costumier Speaks to Performing Arts

On Tuesday 01 December Ian Stead a Theatrical Costumier gave an interesting and enlightening talk to Performing Arts students at Craven College. He spoke in detail about how he first got into the theatre industry through training at the Royal Ballet School in London and then moving into freelance work as a costume designer.

Ian spoke about how the roles and responsibilities of his work involved studying the script, working alongside, and discussing ideas with the director, and production, make-up, lighting and set designers, researching suitable costume styles and fabrics, sketching costume designs, creating costumes to fit the production’s design concept and budget, giving instructions to costume makers, wardrobe supervisors and assistants. During the production he also explained how he may be involved in fitting, altering, and adapting costumes, cleaning, ironing, and mending, making sure wardrobe items are available at the right and keeping the look of the costumes the same between shoots or scenes.

At the end of the talk, he explained how over the last year, his work had changed due to the Coronavirus Pandemic and how this had severely hit the arts and the people like himself who worked within it.