Last night was first dress rehearsal for the show I am currently working on: Tape. The costumes worked fine so I am free to I catch up on some personal things, like my own wardrobe.
Recently the thought has been percolating, so to speak, that I could apply some of my strategies from costume design to putting together my own look. The one I am thinking of today is choosing where to shop. Because none of us has time for hunting all over town and – like us – community- based theaters also have “bottom of the fashion food chain” budgets.
Step one: identifying what you want. Clearly, in designing costumes there is more to this (analysis, renderings, and so forth).
Step two: decide where you are most likely to find it in the top range of reasonable price. For example, my daughter was recently shopping for winter boots in a size just beyond standard; since Nordstrom was originally a shoe specialty store, and we have a Rack in Spokane, it made sense for her to go there.
Step three: where might you find the item for next to nothing that is close enough to shop on the same trip?
Step four: what other options are close by?
Step five: create a loop of stores that you can reasonably hit in the time you have available to shop.
Occasionally this process needs to be repeated in another area of town. A variation of this strategy is to loop a stop onto another errand.
Sometimes in costuming I am looking for something very specific. By honing in on the stores most likely to have what I am looking for, I have typically been able to find exactly what I need, within a very limited budget.
Now I just need to translate that success to my own wardrobe. 😉
Envious of your ability to strategize as a costume designer. I assume this extends past procuring items needed and to an ability to think through what is most representational of those characters and/or time periods. Curious, though, a lot of my thinking has to be done with item at least in hand and preferably on the body. Sometimes I know what I want because I’ve been doing very little shopping (I don’t really need more for the season – items added = confusion added through multiplicity of good choices), so I take note of what items I wish I had to complete an outfit. Just a mental reference. When I have shopped a lot, I have used the inexpensive but good quality church thrifts to experiment with how newer trends might suit me. Since it’s important to you to be contemporary, how do you handle this – where do you go to figure out what will work for you?
I have been thinking that I need to make an actual written note when I am getting dressed and find an item is needed; I am actually almost unable to think when I am shopping. So, I find I am inspired by what the people around me are wearing. Sometimes I just see things in my head. That can be really frustrating, if it proves to be hard to find 😉
I do enjoy thinking out what the character would wear. And it was just recently, when I realized I had had some really great successes in shopping for costumes, that I had the thought to try it with my own wardrobe.
When i have the energy, I like to try on new looks at the thrift store. It’s crazy to me how they have really current stuff (mixed in, of course). Also, Marshall’s and TJMaxx, places like that, I like to try new things. Hope that answered your question. Since I am a big picture person, I don’t really care if my accessories and so forth are contemporary; the biggest thing is the shape of my pants, I think.
Btw, I think, back to Myers Briggs, that the S is related to doing it by trial and the N is related to more by theory. Think?
oohh, so maybe I am by nature needing to see and experience the stuff on. I recently spotted a nice striped wooly scarf, knit in a checkerboard pattern. I liked the tart mustardy yellow, the taupe and the brown almost black. I left it and was sorry and home again printed out a picture of it to put next to my coats and such. 😀 Did not work and had to go back and get actual scarf.
I am also a big picture Lumper person. Hmm. I cannot even say what is the most important thing to me.
I could list out pretty much everything I own but in a store looking at any other garment I am considering, I go totally blank and cannot recall anything about my wardrobe. I surely can’t do that Will it go with 3 or 5 other outfits? business.
I, also, do want to look contemporary, at least in a general sense. Though I think I can get too fashion forward owing to absorbing so much information as to upcoming trends. I can get very influenced by this and by seeing what all the online people are wearing. It has helped me a lot to try to peel this off, limit my exposure and let what I used to love throughout my life well up to replace it.
Recently this happened with a favorite cardigan that I have owned for half a dozen years or more. It is different from all the rest of what I have. Thin knit and I often wear it buttoned up as a top. Vanilla colored with pretty big raspberry colored roses and leaves of a yellowy fern or olive green. The tiny buttons have some sparkle like rhinestones. Suddenly, wearing it the other day I recalled being a child and purchasing some dime store earrings with my pocket money. You’ve probably seen the like. Tiny hearts of ivory with tinier red roses with leaves. The shape outlined by even tinier rhinestones. Those little screw back earrings, that old. Of course, I don’t have them anymore but I always liked them and now that sweater makes total sense to me. It is a version of my childhood trinket.
One thing I am getting better at is answering the question, or at least asking it, “will I regret not getting it?” Still being open to returning things, but avoiding the nagging feeling of remembering something I really should have bought. Like a white leather skirt I saw at the thrift store more than a year ago; I should have at least tried it on!
I was also thinking that things might be a little different for you and me than for the average woman on the street, just because we think about it so much (what to wear). It reminds me of when I told my costume design mentor about having trouble buying a costume where a street person had a Burberry plaid scarf and she told me that we are not ordinary audience members any longer. It actually helps me to not get irritated about details like that I would have done differently 😉
Oh that’s intriguing about the burberry scarf. Of course a street person could have one – knockoff of that plaid everywhere in every sort of garment. Plus, people in Britain tend to be leery of the iconic plaid because it was adopted by “chav” groups – “young lower-class person who displays brash and loutish behaviour and wears real or imitation designer clothes.” – wikipedia.
I suppose it is possible, however unlikely. But the show was Annie, set in the depression, and Burberry plaid originated in the 20s as trench-coat lining 😉
It is kinda annoying to find that stuff annoying! 🙂