It’s hard, especially for women. This article doesn’t mention it, but there is a huge pay gap between the scene shop and the costume shop. When I worked at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1998 I earned $10 an hour as a costume crafts woman and the beginning carpenters, men, were starting at $25 an hour. This was explained to us by saying that they could earn twice that in the real world.
Costumier 