It’s a well known fact that costume designers are often paid less than set and light designers. It’s a civil rights issue because so many costume designers are women and set designers are men. There are more female lighting designers than set designers but it still is unbalanced. The budgets for the different design areas are massively unequal too. Light design rushed ahead with their budgets when everything became computerized. Now one light can cost more than a whole season’s budget for costumes. Scenery too has continued to mechanize and all that costs money. Technical directors and producers are also predominately men and they can easily be convinced that scenery and lights should have budgets that are ten times the costume budget. It’s partly boys and their toys, they are ready to believe that technology must advance and be paid for, and men can make the arguments easier to other men.
Meanwhile costume shops haven’t changed much since the 1880’s. It’s discouraging but there is no orgasmatron or instant looms or a fitting machine or even better an actor shape changer. No, we are still using fabric, needles and thread. But, they cost money, and we need to fight for our fair share of the budget. We could hire another person for the shop for the cost of one lighting instrument. So don’t give up and don’t let yourself be kept outside of the budget decisions.
I worked in the costume shop of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1998 as a crafts person. OSF has a long proud history of gorgeous costumes and minimal scenery. They started out with a replica of the Globe theatre and expanded but costumes were always an important design element. They built a new beautiful costume shop with a wonderful crafts area. I worked there late in my career and was paid $10 an hour. That was more than the stitchers were paid who were almost all women and very skilled. The carpenters, mostly men, were paid something like $25 an hour. This was quite upsetting. It was explained by the fact that there was a building boom in Southern Oregon and the carpenters could go elsewhere and easily be paid more. There was no place for anyone in the costume shop to go in the area and be paid more.
There used to be a garment making industry in this country but it was one of the first industries to be outsourced. Now most of our clothes are made by women and children earning pennies in other countries. The garment workers union was busted and there is no more work for seamstresses here except for minimum wage at best. Nevertheless I think that OSF should pay their stitchers exactly what their carpenters are making.
Over the course of my career I have been paid less than the male designers regularly and have had to work with much smaller budgets. Both of those things are so unfair and so irritating. I can only hope it becomes better in the future.
If you would like to read a great article about the real cost of clothing check out
Costumier 