Freer Alison - How to Get Dressed: A Costume Designers Secrets for Making Your Clothes Look, Fit, and Feel Amazing

Copyright 2015 by Alison Freer
Cover and interior illustrations copyright 2015 by Julia Kuo

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
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Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freer, Alison.
How to get dressed / Alison Freer.
pages cm
1. Clothing and dressHandbooks, manuals, etc.
2. FashionHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.
TT515.F74 2015
646.3dc23
2014036765

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774-707-9
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60774-706-2

Design by Margaux Keres

v3.1

contents

I am a costume designer living and working in Hollywood, California. You might be wondering what a costume designer even does, which makes senseI wondered the same thing, even as I was agreeing to be one! If youve ever thought that your favorite characters wardrobe on that really great show was the bees knees, you have a costume designer to thank for it. Because that character didnt just wake up that waya clever costume designer created the look you love so much.

Being a costume designer means Im the one responsible for the designing, fabricating, shopping, fitting, accessorizing, altering, repairing, and customizing of every single piece of clothing that actors wear while on cameraright down to their underwear and socks. Whether Im working on a film, TV show, or commercial, Im pounding the pavement at fabric stores, boutiques, flea markets, shopping malls, and costume houses twelve to fourteen hours a day, every day. The jobs I take are particularly unglambecause there is a world of difference between a professional costume designer who dresses actors as the characters they play and a celebrity stylist who exclusively outfits stars for red carpet appearances.

One of us (the celebrity stylist) has every top clothing and jewelry designer in the world on speed dial, while the other (the costume designer, thats me!) usually has only five hundred bucks and a pocket full of ingenuity to get the job done. Youre not likely to find me delivering ball gowns to hotel suites in glamorous locales or being name-checked in an actors Oscar acceptance speech. More often than not, Im standing on a ladder in a dusty costume house looking for showgirl outfits or hunched over a folding table in my basement office on a studio lot, trying to figure out how to sew soda cans onto a furry seal costume in time for the afternoons shoot. But I wouldnt have it any other way, because the thousands of hours Ive spent in the trenches figuring out what works for my actors wardrobes has made me an authority on anything and everything having to do with clothesfrom determining what constitutes proper fit to what to do when a wardrobe crisis strikes. Ive also made a ton of mistakes along the way, so whatever your particular problem, I can guarantee its happened to meand that I probably have the solution.

I actually lied my way into becoming a costume designer. (Thats some hot career advice right there, by the way: fake it til you make it!) Ive been a rabid collector of clothes, shoes, handbags, and accessories my entire lifeso much so that my first apartment in Los Angeles really just functioned as one giant closet. There were rhinestone cowboy boots lining the walls of my living room, a dozen cut-up vintage prom dresses hanging in the bathroom, and nothing in my bedroom but racks of clothes and a mattress on the floor. One day my neighbor (who also happened to be a commercial director) came over to borrow something, took one look at this total mania, and asked, Whoa, are you a costume designer?

He didnt even notice the white polyester dress I had bubbling away in a pot on the stove, which was an unsuccessful attempt to dye it black using India ink. (There arent enough words to explain how badly that experiment failed, by the wayso save yourself a headache and skip to for some pro-style dyeing tips if youre interested in making the things you own change colors.) I froze for all of three seconds before I decided to answer that yes, of course, I was indeed a costume designer. I suspected that whatever a costume designer actually was, I could probably be one. I innately knew that what I already loved doing could probably become my career and that I likely could be just as good at it as anybody else. That director called to hire me for a small commercial the very next week. And just like that, my career was born. It wasnt fate, it was just an incredible opportunity that I smartly grabbedand then held on to for dear life.

People always ask me what special skills I learned to become a successful costume designer and are consistently shocked when I tell them that the answer is Pretty much none! Not only did I not attend fashion school, I barely attended college. I struck out on my own early in life, taking on a number of jobs that depended solely on my ability to communicate well and get people excited about things. I was a shopgirl in clothing and jewelry stores, and the experience I gained while working with the general public is what most effectively prepared me to be a costume designerbecause dressing people is really all about sales. I can paint a picture with words and images that allows people to believe in me and see what the end result will beand give them the confidence to let me spend rather large amounts of their money!

Long before I worked retail, I was a scrappy eighteen-year-old DJ at my local alternative radio station. I started out as the receptionist but eventually badgered them until they broke down and gave me an overnight on-air shift, provided it didnt interfere with my daytime responsibilities. I slept in my office (which was also the stations front lobby) from the time my shift ended at 5:00 a.m. until my daytime receptionist gig began at 9:00 a.m. I learned how to talk, communicate, schmooze, and how to figure it out at all costsskills Im still utilizing to this very day.

Thats not to say that I dont still wake up almost every single morning wondering, Why do these people trust me? Whats wrong with them? And what if I screw everything up? Ive learned the hard way not to psych myself out too muchto just push through and focus solely on the task at hand. This single-minded, eyes-on-the prize, dogged determination is what makes me uniquely qualified to solve any wardrobe problem the universe manages to come up with. (Its also the reason I cant ever attend a wedding without being grabbed out of the congregation at the last minute to tie the brides French bustle or repair a flapping bra strap.)

Looking back, Id really been preparing to become a costume designer my entire lifeI just never realized it. As a teen in Texas, Id be dropped off at the mall by my parents each and every Saturday with my five best buds and $30 of babysitting money in my pocket. While my pals were busy blowing their allowance on CDs and Slurpees, I was hunting for cool clothes I could actually afford that fit the vision of myself I had in my head. (Figuring out what image I wanted to project to the world via my wardrobe makes me the very first character I ever dressed!) This was a valuable lessonbecause while having great style is an essential part of being a costume designer, good budgeting skills are really at the heart of the job description. Designers who go over budget dont tend to get rehired, so knowing your way around a clearance rack is a very valuable skill.