Colleen Atwood Quotes
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I worked in fashion, but I worked more in the sales side of fashion than in design. I was an assistant buyer for a department store back in the '70s and the early years of Saint Laurent. And I used to have a lot of private clients that I bought for.
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I love designing costumes that I can actually construct, working to create an environment that people want to be in.
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One of the challenges with period costumes is, on a technical level, making the scale of different periods work on contemporary bodies. We're much bigger than what people were in older times.
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I grew up in a small town in Washington State, so I wasn't really aware of costume design as a career growing up, but I loved clothes. I remember I saved all my money, and the first thing that I bought was a white blazer, which was to the horror to my parents. But I have always had a strange connection with clothing.
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I have watched 'Project Runway,' but I'm not a devout watcher of it. But I think it's a great show, what I've seen of it, and I think Tim Gunn is a very positive, amazing guy.
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It's fun conjuring what people will be wearing in the future. We exist in this world today, and yet there are people walking around who still look like they're in the '60s.
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The exposure I have had to beautiful materials across the world, from Japan to Italy, enables me to pull design ideas together. This, combined with years of historical research, has created a great fountain of ideas for me.
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If you want someone to feel warm, you dress them in a warm color and put a warm light on them and you get the picture. Sometimes, all that needs pushing a little bit to help tell the story.
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I think that sometimes people don't understand that a costume that has to be worn every day and doesn't change the whole movie becomes iconic. It's very important because it requires a different design process, since you have to make something that people aren't going to get tired of looking at.
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In Chicago, I walked in knowing what the dancers were going to need.
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Planet of the Apes was a gigantic challenge, making the clothes work so people could do stunts and action in the clothes. I really learned a lot about that in that movie.
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The designs were based on quite a lot of research of what a movie musical is, filtered through the eyes of today. If we'd gone strictly with the '20s, the movement would have been impaired.
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I design for the movie and the character as well as the person wearing the costume. I show the ideas to the actor, then do fittings for shape and technical things such as movement in the costume. Once the costume in this form is on the actor, you have a sense of their connection with it. I then take it to the next level with the final fit.
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I really don't over-theorize about design. I'd rather feel it than talk it to death. A lot happens as you unroll the design.
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Sleepy Hollow had a lot of action in it, even though it was a fairy-tale movie.
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I always have a moment when I know I'm designing the last costume that gets made for a movie, and it's always been floating up there, but it's kind of the last one. That's always probably the hardest one for me.
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I grew up in the age of polyester. When I got to touch real silk, cotton and velvet, the feel of nonsynthetic fabrics blew me away. I know it's important how clothing looks, but it's equally important how it feels on your skin.
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Knowing who the actors were as you were designing them helped, with Catherine's beauty and Renee's frailty, they directed me visually just by who they were.
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As for futuristic costumes, I loved doing 'Gattaca' because I'm a minimalist at heart, and it's a very minimal film. Plus, with Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Jude Law, how could you go wrong?
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Costume, hair and makeup can tell you instantly, or at least give you a larger perception of who a character is. It's the first impression that you have of the character before they open their mouth, so it really does establish who they are.
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I've always loved movies, art and clothes.
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For contemporary fashion, I'm a huge fan of so many of the people out there. I think Azzedine Alaia holds up through three generations of very specific, beautiful design. I think Jean Paul Gaultier also is very interesting with a long span.
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It's often said that costume designers are a faceless group of people. But we can contribute to fashion in a way that might be new and different.
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On Planet of the Apes, I had a very knowledgeable team who knew good materials, but I had one main source person who worked online and on the street continually looking for the proper materials.