Costume Design

One Area I am very interested in is Costume Design and in particular the costume design in film based in Historical settings. I love the idea of bringing something back to th enow that has been lost to history.

One television show at the moment that has drawn my attention is 'Vikings'. It has a broad range of costumes designs from the poor to the very wealthy.

Costume Designer Joan Bergin said "I took everything that I thought they would [have been able to] get their hands on, the linens, the wools, the weaving, because they were remarkably sophisticated,” said Bergin. “Paganism has this beautiful imagery and great craftsmanship. They took great pride in [what they made], much like American Indians. I could justify elements like pink fur, because they could have dyed it using berries. As it went on, I got braver.”

I think it is important when creating costumes to take into account who the charaqcters are and their surroundings. It wouldn't make sense to put someone in a piece of clothing that would be unavailavle to them. ALso I think the character has to be taken into account. A modest and unasuming character would not make sense to be wearing bright colourful and expensive designs or fabric. 

Overall I think Vikings costume design is really well thoght out and researched.

It also made me think about costume design for my proposal. It is set in the Regency, in the early 19th Century. There are three Characters and they all have very different costumes.

Firstly there is the man/creature. For him I am envisioning a vagabond type character. However I want him to be dressed in clothes that were one fine. S the fabrics will be luxurious but distressed. I think costume is a big part of a character. If I was to dress this character in poorer fabrics there wouldn't be a sense of the dilapidation that the character had endured before the film starts. It's an interesting idea to be able to give a character a deeper depth even before you've been able to introduce them properly. 

In terms of the other two characters in the sequence. As these are characters who need to represent wealth. and they are only on screen for barley 5 minutes, they need to be shown as this through their attire.

Overall this is a subject I am interested in and I like the idea of a character being reflected in the clothes and how well thought out and effective this can be.