Applying the Design Process to My Own Costume

Since finishing college, I have gone more or less from one show to the other designing, shopping for, and producing the costumes. It has been fun. It has also been alot of work; at times I have thought,

wouldn’t it be fun to put this kind of structure and effort towards developing my own wardrobe?

Now I have time. 🙂

Step one in the process is to choose a season and produce a schedule. I have seen, in practice, both the benefit of having a schedule and deadlines AND the hindrance of not. Here in The Great Northwest, we have four seasons and they basically follow the calendar; thus, my goal is to have a complete summer wardrobe by the 4th of July. If your wardrobe planning is not as far behind as mine is, you could work on the outgoing season and catch the sales. Honestly, I think the planning for any season could be done at any time of the year.

Summer 2014 Design Schedule

  1. (May 27-30): choose season
  2. (June 2-6): lifestyle analysis
  3. (June 9-13): design & rendering
  4. (Jun 16-20): pull from stock
  5. (Jun 23-27): shop
  6. (Jun 30- July 4): alterations

Two steps I am skipping: character analysis and research. I think I do enough of those; at some point, analysis must stop and action begin.

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4 thoughts on “Applying the Design Process to My Own Costume”

  1. I think your idea to put your skills in theater production to use in your own wardrobe is brilliant. I tend to look at my wardrobe as costuming anyway 😀 but don’t have the useful experience you now do. Looking forward to reading how this develops for you!

  2. I too love this idea, and look forward to learning from you on applying the process to real life. I’ve never done costuming, but like the idea of viewing my wardrobe as a costume that supports and accurately portrays me as the character I am.

  3. Thanks ladies! That is really encouraging and I am excited too. This morning I cycled my boots into “cold storage” and got my spring and summer shoes put somewhere where I can see them all. 🙂

  4. Pingback: Six Levels of Casual » The Space Between My Peers

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