Top 40 Colleen Atwood Quotes

The right costume determines the character, helps the actor feel who he is, and serves the story.

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.

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.

I can create clothes for so many different time periods. I’ve always tried to avoid being pigeonholed. Plus, everything I learn about design and costume from one movie somehow works its way into something else.

Inspiration comes from everywhere: books, art, people on the street. It is an interior process for me.

In real life, a lot of people at that level will have their kimonos made especially for them.

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.

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.

The costumes had to serve the choreography.

As a designer, you have to solve a lot of problems. Even though people are wearing clothes that are supposed to look beautiful, they’ll have to do all kinds of things.

Some of the kimonos took as long as four to five months to make, with all the layers that go into it.

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.

Each simian had a much different body suit, so besides trying to define class across species, there was a definite attempt to dress each group in different styles.

Costume design allows you to do a different type of research and create characters, whereas in fashion, you create an image and clothing for the masses.

I think a lot of young girls go through that period in their life of finding who they are, and at that point, looking good matters the most.

My work space is so visually crammed. It’s like an insane candy store. The number of textiles I’m surrounded with is mind boggling. It’s a treat to come home to a nice negative space.

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.

I wanted to be a painter when I was a kid. And then, I had to make a living. I had a child when I was in high school, so I kind of had that work phase in my life.

I don’t design my own clothes. It’s so not what I think about.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s true that I’m not cozy. I’m more reserved.

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.

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.

I’d seen the current stage production and the 1975 production of Chicago. I liked them both very much, but I didn’t use them necessarily as inspiration.

My own style is pretty classic; I much prefer to design for others.

The thing that’s great about being a costume designer is you never know what’s going to be next; you never what world you are going to enter.

Costumes are the first impression that you have of the character before they open their mouth-it really does establish who they are.

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.

I get more distracted by hair or a really bad wig than I do costumes any day of the week.

One thing about costume design – and I think design in general – but especially costume design, is people have a misconception that it’s very glamorous work.

I have always loved beautiful leather objects, especially the detail that goes into designing them both inside and out.

I always loved clothes, just not clothes that were appropriate to the place I grew up in.

I am always looking for ideas, whether it is in art on the street or in my world travels. It comes to me randomly and unexpectedly.

I’d say probably the most expensive costumes I’ve ever made were the costumes in ‘The Planet of the Apes,’ because of the research and development that went into them and the amount of layers.

It actually is as fun to make men’s costumes, especially if they are as good-looking as Chris Hemsworth.

I choose colors I like and will photograph well. I don’t do color theory!

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.