Dressing for the Occasion: The Role of Costume Design in Creating the Fantasy

It’s hard to think about fantasy without thinking about grand ball gowns or shiny suits of armor. Costume design in fantasy media immerses viewers in the world, taking us from reality to medieval times or faraway fairytales. 

But what seems magical is actually very methodological. The whimsical gowns and outlandish suits in our favorite movies and television shows come from turning standard costume design practices into something new and out of this world.

Costume designers must consider what fits into the world they are trying to create. From the kings and princesses in medieval epics to the alien races from beyond this galaxy, fantasy costuming is all about storytelling. 

Ben Kress is pursuing his MFA in Stage Design at Northwestern. What got him really interested in the process of design was the revelation that the outfits in “Star Wars” don’t have any buttons. Kress discovered that the intention was to separate the viewer from seeing things that felt too close to Earth.

“I think that’s kind of brilliant, to make a little decision like that just with the thought: how can we make this look otherworldly to the audience?” Kress says.

While worlds like “Star Wars” have set the precedent for fantastical experiences, Kress says that classic portrayals of fantasy create a sense of otherworldliness through purposeful othering — which means their biases can stand the test of time along with their garments. 

For example, the costuming of alien civilizations in “Star Wars” reinforces negative stereotypes, directly linking alien cultures to non-white cultures. The Tuskens are one of the first alien species we meet in the franchise, and George Lucas has said that the Bedouin people of North Africa and the Middle East heavily inspired their design. As these Tusken raiders are only depicted as “fearsome, desert savages,” per the “Star Wars” website, the fantasy of the world shatters into xenophobic and negative representations.

So, Kress says a challenge of costume design is to maintain the fantasy while breaking away from harmful conventions and approaching a project in a completely new way. He cites Ruth Carter, costume designer for “Black Panther,” as a designer who is breaking the mold.

Like other fantasy movies (yes, superhero movies are part of the genre), “Black Panther” takes inspiration from the past. The challenge, though, was to convey a rich African culture untouched by colonization, one that looked toward the future but was rooted in historical African prints and wear. So, Carter took inspiration from all over the continent to create a beautiful fantasy world of the future. 

Like Carter, most designers look for ways to subvert classic interpretations of fantastical trends. Sometimes, that means spinning an old tale into something new. 

Communications second-year Alena Haney has worked on three student productions as a costume designer at Northwestern. Most recently, she worked on outfitting the fantasy world of “Into the Woods.” As she designs outfits for a fantasy embedded with archetypal characters from fairytales, Haney says that she considers how many ways she can imagine a character when brainstorming costumes.

“I think something that helps me is finding what is the largest, most literal way of doing this and depicting this, and what is the most abstract, minimalistic, basic version of that,” she says.

Maybe a costume for the Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood leans into its animal nature, or maybe it instead focuses on the charming and manipulative personality of the character. For Haney’s production, she says her team opted for a combination of the two: a fur-trimmed suit with a wolf mask.

“There’s a lot of defined ways that people dress in the world, and so you’ll have a character who really leans into that and is like, ‘I’m gonna dress exactly how whatever society or the world of the play is in.’ Or people who wanna push more against that,” Haney says.

Beyond the techniques and mechanics of costume design, Haney says she enjoys seeing her visions come alive on the stage. “It helps [the actors] tell the story, and I think that’s really the fun part,” she says.

Kress agrees that it’s the element of performance that adds to the joy of costume design.

“It is a really rewarding process to do that alongside an actor who’s doing the same thing in a different way with a different vocabulary,” he says.