The book blink, the Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell provides an interesting window into what we are doing as costume designers. The thesis of the book is that we all make split second decisions about other people based on what we see and how we interpret it. It is something that is hardwired in our brains and also something that we learn over time. Our eyes give us so much information about other people that we are hardly even aware of the process of evaluation and categorization. He also goes on to show in the book how shallow that first impression can be and how we can misinterpret our findings. It is a fascinating book and it is vital to costume designers to start to think about and question their own instant judgments about people.
When the actor firsts appears upon the stage that moment is ours as well as the actors. How much can we say about the character with the costume and how much do we want to say? Our costumes must have complete synchronicity with the actor’s interpretation of the character and the world of the production. The audience wants to understand what is going on as soon as possible and is looking for clues to the character. We can help provide those clues and aid in the process of the audience forgetting itself and getting into the world of the play. If the costume is puzzling there should be a reason for that or we have failed. It is part of the strange dichotomy of the costume designer that we want the costumes to be forgettable and the only thing that the audience remembers is the character. As an ongoing exercise think about the assumptions you make about people based on looks, analyze it, question it, study it and apply it to the costume you design. It is our job to make instant impressions.
Costumier 