New Zealand fashion and lifestyle blog

Charlotte Rust costume designer

A Q & A with the talented Charlotte Rust – Stylist/Costume designer – as she tells Thread about sourcing fashion and costuming for shows. Stylist Charlotte Rust’s latest work can be seen in Silo’s Private Lives playing at Q Theatre this month…

Charlotte Rust – Stylist/Costume designer – tells Thread about sourcing fashion and costuming for shows. Stylist Charlotte Rust’s latest work can be seen in Silo’s Private Lives playing at Q Theatre this month…

What is it about costume design for theatre that intrigues you the most?
Theatre can be very physical and I like that you have to think beyond the clothing looking good onstage. Shane Bosher always has some challenging action in his shows which push the limits of the clothing, as well as the actors, so it is always interesting to see how the pieces behave.

We can imagine there are a number of skills you can draw from given your time with Fast and Loose – but is there anything from the theatre world that’s taught you about fashion?
I find fashion isn’t always relevant in theatre, it is more about getting the appropriate costume for the character and making the actor feel right in it. Luckily we have so many great designers that the fashion aspect fits in nicely.

How do you find working with theatre types? How different are they to say customers that you used to deal with?
They are very specific, which is helpful. The costumes need to believable for them, like a second skin for their character so I find that there is a lot of discussion about this which points me in the right direction.

Is there a lot of discussion and reasoning behind the selections that you make? Perhaps at times reasoning why the selection has been made to directors or creative teams?
At the start of pre-production I sit down with the director and have a good chat about the characters, make notes about how they see them and then go away and tweak my research. After the first fitting there is also a bit of a rethink on some things but often I find that I am a good part of the way there and just need to get the finer points right. This can take right up to preview night though if some things don’t look right in the set. Sometimes I gently push my point across if I feel like I have sourced the best item I can.

Is it difficult sourcing items for different shows? For instance, 20’s style attire for Private Lives, to capture exactly what the creative team want?
Shane wanted Private Lives to be contemporary and also high fashion so that wasn’t too difficult at all. A visit to Zambesi provided quite a few costumes and then other local designers yielded perfect outfits.

Has there been any instances when you’ve been involved with a theatre show, only to discover the costume design to come back into fashion shortly afterwards?
Because I have only done contemporary shows I tend to follow fashion or rather what is available at retail but I could see that some theatre would provide a trend direction, especially a period piece.

Silo’s Private Lives is playing at Q Theatre 7-29 September 2012
To book tickets for Private Lives head to www.qtheatre.co.nz or phone 09 309 9771

15 September 2012


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