costume design
I grew up with fast fashion as my primary interaction with clothing. I thought that clothing just appeared in shops and never questioned where it came from, what it was made of, or who made it. Nobody sewed in our household, except for a simple mend or a button, so I never imagined that someone was sitting in front of a machine sewing every stitch that I wore. I started sewing by opshopping and altering the things I bought, eventually attempting to make things from scratch. As I learned the skill I quickly realized that it was impossible to reconcile the hours it took me to sew something and the $30 garment from a fast fashion store.
After petroleum, the fashion industry is the second worst polluter in the world. More and more of our clothing is made from petroleum-based fibres and over 90 million tonnes of textile waste goes into landfill each year. The industry employs roughly one out of eight people worldwide and the rise of fast fashion has meant that they are working in horrific conditions at the expense of their own health and that of the environment. This is the context in which we make clothing and costumes; this is the weight of thinking about the clothed body. However if we look further back we can see that textiles have a much richer history as something that has defined us as a species since the beginning of our story.
Photo Credit: Andi Crown Photography, Scenes from a Yellow Peril
I do not have a background in costume design, nor did I study fashion. I studied fine art and, disheartened by seeing dumpsters full of student artwork at the end of semesters, I swore off artmaking and decided to only make functional objects. This is where I started to make clothing quite seriously and think about how it could convey meaning, starting a conceptual clothing label called 6x4 in 2012. My first encounters with costume came through projects with friends for dance, music, short films, and performance. My first role as costume designer was for ‘Frankenstein’ at The Court Theatre in 2021. The following year I costumed ‘Scenes From a Yellow Peril’ at ASB Waterfront Theatre. These two productions were very different and I learnt a lot about theatre making and the role of a costume designer.
Photo Credit: Andi Crown Photography, Scenes from a Yellow Peril
If we want to address sustainability in theatre we cannot ignore the wider context of the textile industry. Textiles have a rich but very dark history. They have been a vital part of human culture since we first started to dress ourselves: a way for us to tell stories, create identity, protect ourselves, and build community. Prior to the industrial revolution we spent as much time producing textiles as we spent producing food; it was a direct connection to land and the raw materials it could provide. It then became one of the driving factors of the industrial revolution and colonization. We now find ourselves in a strange place where we have no idea where our clothing comes from: where the raw materials come from, how they are processed, the hands it passes through, or where it will go after use. Clothing has lost its meaning: where once it was heavy with symbols, signifiers, and signs, it has become something purely aesthetic, something that exists to look a certain way then be discarded once that is no longer relevant. The fashion system does not value clothing in terms of material quality, personal importance, cultural significance, or craftsmanship; it is a top-down, trend-based fabrication of an industry that exists to sell units. I believe that we can again find meaning in clothing through theatre. On the stage we can connect back to those things that made clothing so significant while also working towards more sustainable systems of production.
Photo Credit: Andi Crown Photography, Scenes from a Yellow Peril
Everyday clothing is bound to strict codes and conventions that we learn, like a language, from a young age. The stage provides a space where we can experience clothing in a completely different way, outside these confines. It is not a requirement that costume does this on a stage but I personally find this potential in costume extremely exciting. We can examine our materials and their life cycles as part of the creative challenge of sustainable costume design. Working in the arts in Aotearoa is almost always an uphill battle; there isn’t enough money to support a large arts infrastructure. With such restrictions, thinking about the most sustainable way to create a production is not always the highest priority. I believe that finding sustainability in costume requires a shift in the culture of how it is produced. Beyond focusing on using more sustainable materials, we must propose an entirely different system of understanding and valuing them: shifting mindset away from a quick means to an end, to the entire lifecycle of materials and their social, spiritual, emotional value will build towards long term sustainability. For a costume designer there is endless potential in finding beauty and value in materials that are considered waste or have already lived a life. We have the power to create a world on stage: we can put wild things made from bizarre materials on the human form and have an audience accept them as clothing. Where everyday clothing is measured in wearability, costume can move further to propose radically different ways approaching the clothed body, where waste materials are used as rich fodder for creativity.
To create a sustainable relationship with costume design it is important to see materials as collaborators, not just as tools. I think of making as a conversation between maker and material, a chance to consider not only the material’s physical characteristics but also its immaterial: where it came from, what it was made for, and what it means. If we put materials first and ask them what they want to become, we can approach design in a way that is sensitive to the wider story of clothing as a human phenomenon. I don’t think we need to impose our vision on materials to make good costumes, we can start first by finding sustainable materials then work to those materials that we find. There is such an abundance of textile waste in Aotearoa, it is not hard to find materials that are destined for landfill and use these for costume. This may limit the range of materials for use but this restriction often leaves more space for responsiveness, creative problem solving, and spontaneity. The end result is always something unexpected as it is not just a realisation of a vision but a collaboration with the materials and their history as waste.
Photo Credit: Andi Crown Photography, Scenes from a Yellow Peril
I wonder what it would be like to see costumes that have been made, remade, and repurposed over and over again? Or costumes that were modular and could be rearranged with each show? Can the touring of a show be factored into the design of the costume? Can a garment turn into a suitcase or a backpack? Can we avoid sending costumes from one place to another entirely? How could these design constraints and challenges make us better designers?
Frankenstein, Directed by Holly Chappell
Photo Credit: Court Theatre, Frankenstein
This was my first job in theatre. As costume designer in this well-established institution I learnt about the various tasks and considerations that come with the role, beyond just making costumes. Since this was a period piece I was tasked with selecting costumes from the Court’s archive, all of which then needed fitting and alteration. The costumes for Frankenstein's monster, the ensemble, and the monster’s bride were original designs. Since this institution had a way of doing things and a tightly scheduled timeline, there was little time to source materials second hand. We bought the necessary fabric to make the costumes we needed. The sewing room had been operating for a long time so there were a lot of materials already available for use. In working with the experienced customers I learnt how construction in costume design differs from ready-to-wear. Things were made very robustly to endure heavy wear over several shows, always with re-use in mind. They were made with large seam allowances to allow future alteration. They also needed to withstand regular laundering and drying, which was factored into the choice of textiles. Since costumes are not meant to be examined closely, they used materials that gave the necessary appearance, rather than the best quality or most accurate to period. Fabrics look very different under lighting so appearance took priority over sustainability or historicity. Of course this was different to the way I think about the context of materials but since the Court is a traditional institution with tight deadlines there wasn’t much room to think about cyclicality. However, since they have been in operation for such a long time they had plenty of costumes and sewing supplies that could be reworked and reused.
Scenes From a Yellow Peril, Written by Nathan Joe
Scenes from a Yellow Peril, Andi Crown Photography
This was the first show where I was solely responsible for the costumes: design, material sourcing, and construction. I wanted to use second hand materials but still use a lot of fabric for dramatic effect. I approached a commercial bedding company that donated around 60 kilograms of bedding which had to be pulled from circulation due to small flaws. I dyed these sheets using acrylic paint and water for a washed calligraphic effect. The dyeing used very little water and, since the show wasn’t very physical, the laundering wasn’t a concern (the costumes were dry-cleaned at the end of the season). Since the original fabric was very flat with little texture, the dyeing gave it the dimension that I wanted on stage. The shoes were made by covering shoes from the ATC costume archive. I fit each of the cast members with a pair of slip-ons then made a unique pattern over top to make a simple zip-back boot. This gave us footwear that worked with the world of the show without having to buy anything new. I bought interfacing, batting, and other haberdashery as I didn’t have enough time to try and source this second-hand.
When constructing the costumes I made a rule of using only rectangular pattern pieces torn along the grain in order to avoid creating waste. I draped these different sized rectangles on a mannequin to create garments that looked like abstract compositions. I wanted to reference the geometries of East Asian Patternmaking but interpret them to create new forms and support the themes of the show. The base costumes were made to be able to be worn in many different ways; each with several options of sleeves and neckholes so the cast could choose how to wear them. This was a practicality, offering ways for the costumes to be activated, and also a metaphor for the changeability of identity. For restaging this leaves space for different bodies to inhabit these costumes. The polycotton fabric didn’t wrinkle so the cast didn’t have to be very precious with them. The costumes are in storage with hopes for another season.
Scenes from a Yellow Peril, Behind the scenes
Since the fabric for the costumes was donated for free it meant that much of the materials budget could be reallocated to labour for dyeing and construction. Finding second hand material and haberdashery is possible but it takes a lot of time visiting opshops, junk shops, salvage shops, and contacting companies to ask for waste materials. Often these second hand materials also will require more work to create a desired effect as it’s not straight off the roll, but I find that this just presents an interesting challenge. If we are able to reallocate the budget away from purchasing new materials into sourcing materials that are headed to landfill we could create a network of theatre makers who are able to connect each other to waste material sources.
I don’t have any solid answers for how to tour theatre more sustainably in Aotearoa. It is already difficult to produce work and make a living in the arts. The demands of each show are very specific and so are the circumstances for the makers. Deadlines and budgets are often tight so makers may not have time to search for materials; however I dream of a network of resources and hubs for second hand materials. There are lots of materials out there (I have found many great rolls of fabric at opshops), the difficulty is in matching the supply with demand. The great thing about second-hand materials is that they are abundant: we have an excess of textiles so reframing this waste stream as a potential resource can be very exciting when thinking about costume design. I come from a background with experience in clothing construction but even for those who are not experienced, second-hand clothing can be a rich source of interest and excitement for costume. Small acts like buttoning, cinching, altering, wearing things the wrong way, painting, cutting holes, buttoning things wrong, buttoning things to each other, adding ties, ripping seams, cropping, sewing pieces together, and turning things inside out can be simple but generative methods for creating something wildly new and interesting. This becomes very natural if we view existing garments and waste as a material, like we view cloth off the roll, rather than the clothing items that they were in the past. I have found offcuts from the dumpster of a uniform manufacturer and remade them into new garments. This prompted me to make garments that I never would have made were it not for the existing qualities of those offcuts.
Textiles exist everywhere and are used in so many industries, if we expand our search beyond the fabric stores we can find so many interesting materials to respond to. Making new things in the face of an industry which causes so much harm can be quite overwhelming and it doesn’t help when making theatre is already very intense. But I conclude by asking everyone, as we interact with clothing every day, to find personal value in the garments we encounter and not defer to the value dictated by a destructive industry. Costume design can be a space for us to propose something fantastical, transcendent, or extreme; let us try and use it as a space to value materials differently, to find the humanness in the textiles which have been with us since the beginning of our story.
Steven Junil Park is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Ōtautahi, New Zealand. He works under the name 6x4, producing everything under the label himself: clothing, shoes and accessories. Most of his pieces are one-offs and often feature recycled, natural-dyed or vintage textiles.
