There’s not a total divide between the world of film and theater costume design, but they are different disciplines. Sometimes that can be freeing when designing for the theater, which doesn’t require the base level of naturalism audiences usually expect from something shot on camera. But then the detail work that a camera can capture — specific fabrics, patterns, how just the right color reads onscreen — can be an essential component of film storytelling.
As part of the Middleburg Film Festival, costume designer Paul Tazewell discussed how he expresses character and builds worlds through costume in both theater or film. Tazewell singled out “Hamilton” as a project where the final costume designs connected the actors to the style and legacy of the American revolutionaries but didn’t tether them to the rules of period clothing. The costumes were designed to link the actors just as much to the vibrancy and energy of the modern language used in the show.
“Both sensibilities were in my bones and I figured out a way to merge them and create a visual [language] that wasn’t belabored — I mean, the detail is there, but it’s also done in a way where you can step aside from that kind of museum period detail and just engage in the story,” Tazewell said.
Engaging with Jon M. Chu’s forthcoming adaptation of “Wicked,” meanwhile, was not just about reinterpreting the Broadway musical’s costumes or taking inspiration from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz,” but about expressing something of Cynthia Erivo’s and Ariana Grande’s interpretation of Elphaba and Galinda.
Tazewell previously worked with Erivo on the film “Harriet” and thought deeply about where Erivo’s Elphaba would draw strength from, which guided his design choices. “The character’s connection to nature seemed appropriate to me because [Elphaba is] an advocate for animals, because she’s marginalized, and potentially finds solace in nature,” Tazewell said.
A documentary on mushrooms and the interconnectedness of mushroom systems helped solidify the natural language that Tazewell wanted for Elphaba. “Thinking about how I could fabricate the patterns and textures that I was seeing in the mushrooms and also just having the experience and knowledge of how to manipulate fabric led me to the idea of micro-pleating and laying all of that down on a base [dress],” Tazewell said.
Tazewell’s patterns differ from actual mushroom shapes in their swirl and flow across Elphaba’s costumes — which subtly ties her to the ways that Grande’s Galinda, in personality and in actuality, loves to float. As complicated as Galinda’s dresses are, they couldn’t ever seem to weigh down Grande, which took a lot of R&D to achieve.
“It was like creating a building because we needed to figure out, ‘OK, so what is the understructure? How is this going to be supported? How can we get this to look as light as air and then be wearable?’” Tazewell said. “It’s all floating, basically, when she’s moving around the set. It took a lot of figuring out but we got there.”
Before either character steps into their most iconic looks, Tazewell wanted the audience to have a visual sense of their personalities through their clothes. He designed the looks at Shiz University to mirror the sometimes exciting, sometimes clumsy way that college students try on different versions of themselves.
Within the same basic structure and color palette, “I wanted to set up a world where everyone is defining themselves in different ways but it’s all held together by a uniform — a teal jacket and a pinstripe bottom of some sort, whether it’s a kilt or it’s trousers or it’s a half-trouser, half-kilt, or it’s shorts. That was a lot of fun to put that together,” Tazewell said. “There’s a synergy about the costumes and how they move through space, and then also what they’re made of. I think that affects how we visually feel in Oz.”