Costume Designers Share Their Thoughts

The Costume Designers Guild welcomed credentialed press to congregate on the red carpet of their award show honoring film, television and commercial design. As photographers snapped picture after picture of the evening’s guests including Parker Posey, Emily Blunt, and Anna Kendrick, LA 411 had the chance to conduct video interviews with many of the evening’s nominees.  Here are some highlights:

Janie Bryant, “Mad Men,” on her favorite costume from last season:

“Probably January’s white lace maternity dress.  I’m a lace fanatic, and I told the executive producer I wanted to imagine Valentino had come in and inspired the episode.”

Monique Prudhomme, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” on creating costumes for the fantasy movie:

“It was a costume designers dream come true.  The important thing was to keep a good strong narrative through the story.  We could do anything and we could go anywhere, because Dr. Parnassus was an immortal.  The idea was that because Dr. Parnassus has been through the world he’s collected bits and pieces from around the world.  In the caravan there are big bins full of costumes and garments, and that’s what they composed their costumes out of, like a magpie. 

Lou Eyrich, “Glee,” on developing costumes for dance numbers and high schoolers:

“I do work closely with the art department and a lot of backdrops, especially dance numbers, all depend on what the production designer and art department are doing as far as set design and lighting, so we can coordinate the colors and such.  But on the daily school clothes, it’s actually the actors and actresses themselves, we work very closely together.  We just kind of pop some color, add accessories.  The main idea is high school, so we have to keep them real.”

Danny Glicker, “Up in the Air,” on switching from “Milk” to “Up in the Air”:

“It’s what I love about my job, I mean, I get to go from a huge, filthy time in San Francisco where it’s really grungy and politically volatile, and change gears entirely and go into a very antiseptic, business world. Contemporary is so challenging, a lot of costume designers believe it’s the hardest, and I feel there’s a good argument to be made for that because we all have such sensitive eyes to the contemporary aesthetic, so if anything is wrong, if anything is inaccurate, we can tell immediately.”

Jason Alper, “Borat,” on working with Sasha Baron Cohen:  

“You know, we collaborate a lot.  It’s not all Sasha, it’s not all me, it’s not all Larry the director, the three of us, with the writers, collaborate all the time and we work out what the best option is, how the jokes will work the best, and what kind of costume will help execute the joke slightly better.”

Mona May, “The Zookeeper,” on CGI costume design:

“We started with the 2D animation, then the live action, then the CGI characters.  It’s quite an incredible journey to work in three different mediums with the same character.  It’s very fascinating, it’s very detail oriented, and you do a lot of sketching”

To view red carpet video interviews from the CDG Awards, please visit:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/LA-411/35618526357?v=app_2392950137&ref=ts

Winners of the Costume Designers Guild Awards Include:

Excellence in Contemporary Film:  Doug Hall - “Crazy Heart”

Excellence in Period Film:  Sandy Powell – “The Young Victoria”

Excellence in Fantasy Film: Monique Prudhomme – “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parassus

Outstanding Made for Television Movie or Miniseries: - Catherine Marie Thomas – “Grey Gardens”

Outstanding Contemporary Television Series: Lou Eyrich – “Glee”

Outstanding Period/Fantasy Television Series: Janie Bryant – “Mad Men”

Excellence in Commercial Costume Design: Casey Storm – “Milk: Mikquarious”